Deon Schreiber

Linocut reproduction of a detail from the illustration:”Infuriated rhinoceros routing his foes” on page 372 in Miller, J.M., 1909. Hunting big game in the wilds of Africa: with thrilling adventures of the famous Roosevelt expedition.

Simulated newspaper articles that link the narrative of Cecil John Rhodes and some of the last 19th century Northern White rhinos in multiple ways. In 2023 there are only two northern white rhinoceros (Ceratotherium simum simum) remaining. The last male, Sudan, died in Kenya in 2018, leaving two remaining females in Kenya’s Ol Pejeta Conservancy. While sperm … Read more 16

Collection of female rhinoceros toes from the AMNH collection with pages from Herbert Lang’s field notebooks.M-51854. Ceratotherium simum cottoni. Collected 16 April 1911, Faradje, DRC Herbert Lang, a German taxidermist and photographer, led the American Museum’s Congo expedition between June 1909 and September 1915. Together with James Chapin they collected 5800 mammal specimens, including many … Read more 8

The trophy hunting of black rhinos is allowed under strict permit conditions, and is used to generate income for game farms and conservation. In 2004 CITES (the Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species) allowed Namibia and South Africa a quota of a maximum of five black rhino trophy hunts per year. This only applies … Read more 7

Theodore Roosevelt and his son Kermit brought 3 Winchester Model 1895 rifles with them to the Roosevelt-Smithsonian Expedition of 1909. This, together with the .405 Winchester cartridge, became the weapon of choice among American hunters of the time.  In this case a truncated replica of this gun is presented alongside a ‘rhino tail’, photograph of … Read more 6

A painting of a pixelised close-up of the eye of Clara, the Dutch rhino, taken from Jean-Baptiste Oudry’s 1749 painting. Douwe Mout van der Meer brought Clara, the Indian rhinoceros, to Rotterdam in 1741. She died in 1758 in London after touring most European centres. Oudry’s painting was the largest ever painted of the rhino … Read more 5

Labels taken from the Jesuit scholar Athanasius Kircher’s diagram of Arca Noë of 1675. Kircher detailed a plan of the Ark in which scientific studies of the time were reconciled with biblical records. The Ark was classified into three floors:  Ornithotropheion, Bromatodocheion and Zootropheion. Rhinoceros were arranged in O2, between lions and elephants.

Reproductions of the correspondence between Herbert Lang and Richard Tjader and others in relation to the Lang-Chapin Expedition to the Congo (1909-15) and receipt of specimens at the American Museum of Natural History. 5800 mammal specimens were collected. Collection housed at the AMNH, New York. The Congo Expedition: https://digitallibrary.amnh.org/bitstream/handle/2246/1587//v2/dspace/ingest/pdfSource/bul/B039intro.pdf?sequence=1&isAllowed=y

At the top of Dürer’s 1515 print is inscribed in German a description of the rhino based on Pliny the Elder in his Naturalis Historia (AD 23-79). It includes the word “abconderfet” – as taken from the Latin imago contrafacta, meaning an accurate copy of an absent original – a copy that bears witness. As … Read more 2

In 1834 a male Indian Rhinoceros, Rhinoceros unicornis, was purchased by the London Zoological Society at the request of the anatomist, Richard Owen. When this rhinoceros died fifteen years later, the dissection performed by Owen led to the first discovery of the pedal or parathyroid glands on which much endocrinal research is based. https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/abs/10.1111/j.1365-2818.1966.tb00576.x “In … Read more 1