Serendipity and the story of Clara the rhinoceros

At the moment I’m working on my paper for the forthcoming St Hilda’s Crime and Mystery Conference. It will be on the subject of the masks of Venice. One thing I will be mentioning is the wonderful eighteenth century artist Pietro Longhi, who recorded many half-satirical scenes in Venetian drawing rooms and public places.

You only need to see Longhi’s work to understand that the wearing of masks in Venice was, at the time, as common as the wearing of hats. Here’s Casanova talking about his plans for an evening up to no good…

But I was determined upon revenge, and I went on dressing myself and revolving in my mind the darkest plots. It seemed to me that I was entitled to the most cruel revenge, without having anything to dread from the terrors of the law. The theatres being open at that time I put on a mask to go out.

Most of Longhi’s paintings in Venice are in the Grand Canal mansion of Ca’ Rezzonico, which was just round the corner from where I stayed a few weeks ago. A great place, if a little disorganised at times. Somehow I never managed to find the painting I was looking for while I was there, though perhaps it was on tour.

It was this one. A remarkable painting – who on earth would wear a mask to go and see a rhinoceros. And there’s an amazing story behind it too.

Clara was a famous creature for twenty years or so. Orphaned in India, she was toured in Europe as an extraordinary specimen – probably only the fifth rhinoceros ever to reach us at the time. She met Frederick II of Prussia, Francis I and Empress Maria-Theresa of Austria, and Louis XV in Versailles. So taken were the French with Clara that for a while Parisian ladies adopted a style of wig known as ‘à la rhinocéros’. The Venetians merely watched from behind their disguises.

Perhaps most bizarrely of all she died while on show at the Horse and Groom pub, Lambeth (now known, I suspect, simply as the Horse bar). Tickets cost between six pence and a shilling at the time.

Whatever did we do before Wikipedia?

Comments

[Mike Cane]

So it turns out my masked Twitter avatar is actually historically retro?

[David]

I'd assumed that's why you chose it. Not after that Godawful movie.