The Calcutta Rhinoceros, The Fashion Statement in Eighteenth Century Europe

Calcutta Confusion is very happy to publish its first, inaugural guest-post written by Dr. Souvik Mukherjee.

Portrait of Madame Grand (1783)
by Élisabeth-Louise Vigée-Le Brun
Source: Wikipedia 

Long before that renowned Calcutta beauty, Madame Grand, left the city and enthralled high society France as Madame Talleyrand, another celebrity-export from Bengal had already become the cynosure of all Europe. She toured through the Netherlands, travelled to Berlin, met the Austrian emperor, was visited by King Louis XV and finally ended up in Lambeth, London where she might have met the English royalty–I speak here of Clara, the rhinoceros. 

Replacing the famous rhinoceros woodcut by Albrecht Dürer, paintings and sculptures of Clara became the rage in Europe. The French aristocracy adopted a rhinoceros-like horn as part of their wigs, the naturalist Buffon commented on Clara and she also featured in Diderot and D’Alembert’s Encyclopédie. Songs, poems and letters were written about her and the French navy named one of its ships, Rhinoceros. Three famous portrayals of Clara exist: the first one is a painting by Jean Baptiste Oudry, the second is an engraving by Bernhard Siegfried Albinus called The Rhinoceros and the Human Skeleton and the third, a painting by Pietro Longhi from Venice, now hangs in the National Gallery, London. The last shows Clara without her horn, which was supposedly removed a year earlier. The painting shows Clara as an exhibit in the Carnevale of Venice and was purportedly commissioned by the Grimani couple. Clara has even made it to modern-day tote bags and the Barber Institute of the University of Birmingham will sell you these for five quid. The institute’s website states that ‘Thomas Bodkin, a former director of Birmingham’s Barber Institute of Fine Arts, paid £575 – about £21,000 in today’s money – for the 45cm (18in) piece in 1942’ referring to a two hundred and sixty year old statue of Clara. There were glazed ivory statuettes of Clara made in Nymphenburg and you might be lucky to still find one for your collection–if you can afford it, that is.

Albrecht Dürer, Rhinoceros (1515). Source: Wikipedia

Jean-Baptiste Oudry, Portrait of Clara in Paris (1749). Source: Wikipedia

Bernhard Siegfried Albinus, The Rhinoceros and the Human Skeleton (1749)
Source: Wikipedia

Like the earlier rhinoceros in Dürer’s woodcut (also from India and probably sent to Europe by the Portuguese governor, Alphonse Albuquerque), Clara travelled across various places in Europe. In fact, she went to places such as Krakow, Prague, Hanover and many others that we do not have records of. About her origins, however, we can be quite certain. She was probably rescued by the Dutch governor of Chinsurah (near Calcutta), Jan Albert Sichterman, and lived in his house, roaming about in his large garden and often, even coming to the dinner table where he entertained his guests. Sichterman, also called the King or Nabob or Groningen, was a collector of exotic objects and his house in his hometown, the Sichtermanhuis, still contains some of his huge porcelain collection. He apparently even tried to ban Sati while in Bengal although without success. You can read more about him here at the Dutch cemetery in Chinsurah website.

Pietro Longhi's painting of Clara,
Venice (1751). Source: Wikipedia

Clara seems to have been a favourite in the Sichterman household but when she grew too big, the Dutch governor probably donated or sold her to a VOC (Dutch East India Company) sea captain called Douwe Mout van der Meer. Van der Meer took her to Rotterdam and during the voyage, the sailors fed her beer, cheese and choice tidbits while regularly massaging her skin with fish oil (instead of the mud the rhinoceros is used to) to prevent it from drying up. Van der Meer quickly realised the value of Clara as an exotic exhibit and travelled with her across Europe showing her off in various cities and to high society. He became rich overnight, gave up his VOC job and was even awarded a baronetcy by the Austrian emperor. As for Clara, she became the celebrity animal of Europe and indeed the first rhino to be painted accurately by European artists. Glynis Ridley tells the story of Clara’s journey across Europe in her Clara's Grand Tour: Travels with a Rhinoceros in Eighteenth-Century Europe (2005). Just a year after the English victory at Plassey and the rise of the star of the East India Company in Bengal, Clara died in 1758 in London, far away from home and in the capital city of the would-be rulers of India.

Manzato, or Annotations to Abanindranath's Jorasankor Dhaare

This would qualify at best as an annotation, but the joy of tracking down details about someone whose name we read is worth sharing. In the post on Abanindranath's Jorasankor Dhaare, I'd quoted a passage that described an Italian gentleman, whose name I had transcribed with great uncertainty as "Manzata", "Mandhata", and "Manzatto". The scene was singularly moving one, which you can read following the link above.

Today after much cyber-hunting I found the correct spelling: Manzato. And I found a few extra details about him as well.

His full name was Guido Jullio Manzato. The Lucknow baptism records of 1902 says he was a “Band Master” by profession. 1902, because that’s when his second daughter, Ada Carmen, was born (9 June) to him and Aureglia Pardo. At that point, as the register suggests, they must have been in Lucknow.

Aureglia or Aurelia Pardo, married Guido Jullio Manzato at St. Thomas Church in Calcutta on 1899. I came to know of this detail from one F. Dyotor, who is the grandson of the couple, son of the first-born child of the Manzato’s, Cecelia Maria Manzato. He says that his father left England around 1920 “to take employment with Whiteaway Laidlaw, Calcutta”. They resided at 19 Victoria Chambers, Chowringhee, which would mean that his father had only to climb down a floor to get to his workplace. He left for England when he was 2 years old. (I wonder if Dyotor is still searching for his relatives. If so, any help would be welcome!)

Which of the daughters had left Guido Jullio, we aren't sure. If, as Abanindranath says, he lived with that one daughter, the day described in Jorasankor Dhaare must be some time after 25 April 1919, which is when Ada passed away at the age of 17.Ada used to be an assistant at Whiteaway, Laidlaw & Co., which would mean that Cecelia’s husband-to-be joined the establishment only a year after Ada’s death. Her remains are at the Lower Circular Road Cemetery. If it is indeed post 1919, is this Cecelia Maria leaving home for one reason or another?

The upper storeys were the Victoria Chambers. This is from my personal collection, Calcutta Souvenirs, set of 12 photographs, Series 1.