German, late 15th/early 16th century

on wood base

C. Avery , The Distinguish'd Elephant forthcoming (2009), illus.

Overall this bronze is in good stable condition. However there is a casting to the elephant's trunk. There is wear to the surface and lacquer particularly at high points. The tail and base are separately cast. There are scratches and minor dents through out. The bronze is a lovely golden brass colour.
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The iconography of an elephant with a howdah filled with warriors strapped to its back was born from Alexander the Great's battle with King Porus's war elephants at the battle of Hydaspes in 326 BC.  The motif was popularized in European art through the dissemination of Bestiaries (medieval natural history texts of moralizing Christian tales).  Very few live elephants are documented in Europe in the medieval period and, as such, their depictions are often more imaginary than naturalistic. Matthew of Paris's manuscript illumination of an elephant in his Historia major (Corpus Christi college, Cambridge, MS 26, fol. 151v) depicts the animal with a trumpet-like trunk extending outward and legs without knee joints, which was how elephants were believed to look.  A later illustration by Paris, painted after he saw the live elephant that Louis IX of France gifted to Henry III of England (Chronica, British Library, MS Cotton Nero D.1, fol. 161v) is much closer to the realistic anatomy of elephant.

The present elephant was modelled by an artist who had never seen an elephant in the flesh. It is, in fact, the earliest known three-dimensional model of the "elephant and castle." The bronze elephant mimics an engraving by Martin Schongauer, who also does not appear to have ever viewed the actual animal.  Their models are imagined and fanciful and show the animal of lore, not fact, which according to legend lived three hundred years, had a nose like a snake, could not get up when it fell over, and could carry wooden towers on their backs.  

The present bronze, cast in Germany functioned as either a table fountain or perfume burner and, as such, its trunk originally turned outward so that the water or perfume would escape without damaging itself (it was likely altered later to appear more docile).  The bronze is German late Gothic in its facture and its colour indicates a high brass content in the alloy. The Vischer family of brass founders and artists were the leading casters in Nuremburg during the late 15^th and into the 16^th century.  Although there is no clear indication that the present bronze was produced by the Vischer family workshop, their influence is apparent.

RELATED LITERATURE
J. Block Friedman and K. Mossler Figg, Trade, Travel and Exploration in the Middle Ages (New York, 2000) pp. 175-8; The Parker Chronicle, 4, 2008, p. 2-3; J. Chipps Smith, German Sculpture of the Later Renaissance c. 1520-1580 (New Jersey, 1994) p. 401-4