Memo pad: Rhinozerus, Albrecht Dürer

A handy notepad for a quick scribble or jotting down reminders. The 45-degree angle keeps the image generously in view while maintaining plenty of writing space. The sheets of the Memo notepad are firmly glued together yet easily removed from the block.

Albrecht Dürer never saw a rhinoceros in real life. He in fact copied the woodcut from a drawing and a description given by an eyewitness before the ship carrying this gift for the king of Portugal sank on the way from India. Nonetheless, despite the lack of direct observation, the resulting image was immensely popular and formed many people’s ideas of the animal’s appearance. As with religious images from this period, the replication of print gave this woodcut its own type of truth.