Clara in Qatar: A New Life for a Meissen Porcelain Rhinoceros

Abstract

Abstract The Orientalist Museum in Qatar has a small, but important, Meissen porcelain statue of a rhinoceros. This rhino is none other than Clara, the same rhinoceros which toured Venice in 1751, and enjoyed a career spanning some twenty years touring Europe. She became so famous that she was commemorated in art of a variety of media and is represented in the two famous paintings by Pietro Longhi and Jean-Baptiste Oudry, in bronze sculpture, and even appeared as part of the background of an engraving in an eighteenth-century anatomy book. This article will introduce Qatar’s Meissen rhinoceros, its provenance and highlight the ongoing travels of Miss Clara.