Norwhalis

Tony Fitzpatrick, artist

born 1958

Norwhalis, 1994

Where object was made: United States

Material/technique: etching

Dimensions:
Image Dimensions Height/Width (Height x Width): 125 x 100 mm
Sheet/Paper Dimensions (Height x Width): 305 x 305 mm
Image Dimensions Height/Width (Height x Width): 4 15/16 x 3 15/16 in
Sheet/Paper Dimensions (Height x Width): 12 x 12 in
Mat Dimensions (Height x Width): 19 x 14 in

Credit line: Gift of the artist

Accession number: 1995.0018

Not on display

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Exhibition Label:
"Cabinets of Curiosity: Musing About Collections," Jun-2006, Joseph Keehn and Madeline Rislow
These two prints, separated by nearly 500 years, concern creatures whose horns have long been considered to have magical and aphrodisiacal powers. In the print by the Master of the Beheading of Saint John, the unicorn has a spiral horn, indicating that the artist considered the tusk of a narwhal to be a horn of a unicorn (images of smooth unicorn horns are believed to have been based on rhinocerous horns). Ole Worm, whose cabinet of curiosities is shown here in book form, demonstrated that the horns collected as unicorn horns were, in fact, the long tusk of the narwhal.