Albrecht Dürer’s masterpiece of woodcut art celebrates its anniversary
Hardly any other graphic work has been copied, interpreted and reproduced so often over the centuries. Reproduction is a central historical function of the woodcut, as it refers to Gutenberg’s great media revolution of the printed word. During Dürer’s lifetime alone, around 4,000 to 5,000 copies of his “Rhinoceros” were sold; over a period of 500 years, this amounts to an estimated 12,000 to 15,000. Nevertheless, the first prints from 1515, the year in which the work was created, which the artist made himself, are particularly impressive.
One such print from the first edition – measuring 212 x 300 mm, monogrammed and dated – forms the centerpiece of the special exhibition at the Hessisches Landesmuseum Darmstadt, which opens on January 29, 2016.
The “Rhinoceros” from the Darmstadt collection was acquired in the course of the exhibition “Albrecht Dürer. Art in Transition” exhibition in the USA in 2008 and showed a mount along the four edges of the sheet made from a piece of Japanese paper. Restoration was necessary. To this end, the mounting of the “false margin” was first removed dry from the same paper. The print was then dry-cleaned on the verso with eraser crumbs from the artist’s own production, and the false margin also had to be reattached to the sheet in individual places with wheat starch paste.
After a new framing with Plexiglas, the print will be shown during the 2016 exhibition in a darkened room with punctual and UV-free lighting at 50 lux with LED spotlights. The museum will ensure that contact between the sheet and the glass is avoided and that the room temperature complies with the usual conservation requirements of 20 °C ± 2 °C with a relative humidity of 55 % ± 5 %.
To mark the anniversary of the “Rhinoceros”, Albrecht Dürer’s outstanding role in the development of the medium of printmaking is to be demonstrated anew: “Visitors should discover how to see”, explains the press office of the Hessisches Landesmuseum Darmstadt.
The special exhibition “Albrecht Dürer. Masterpieces of Printmaking from the Hessian State Museum Darmstadt” will be on display there from January 29 to April 24, 2016.