Thursday, December 16, 2010

Gratuitous Bertie Dog Picture: Masquerade

"So, what are you?  Some kind of hippo or something?  Why aren't you pink?"


Image:  Exhibition of a Rhinoceros at Venice, Pietro Longhi, 1751, The National Gallery, London

3 comments:

Bertie Fan said...

Love the mask!

Joseph Crisalli said...

When in Venice...

SherR said...

Fun! But an extremely important picture historically. As G. Casanova observed "The savants of our time [ie 1700s] assured us there could not be so much water in the world as to have brought the Deluge [remember Noah's ark]; they [the savants] also assured there could not be such a thing as a rhinocerus." But here in Venice 1751 was a live rhinocerus. Hence this picture. The commissoner wanted a permanent record that such a creature trully did exist and they had seen it exhibited. So much for the 'experts'...
Also, the rhino here has a sweet expression; just quietly eating hay and being itself, but probably quite aware of how significant is his prescence in Venice at this moment.