- Hansken
Hansken (
1630 -9 November 1655 ) was a femaleelephant that became famous in early 17th century Europe. She toured many countries, demonstrating circus tricks, and was sketched byRembrandt andStefano della Bella .Hansken was born in what was then
Ceylon and was brought toHolland in 1637. Her name is a Dutch diminutive form of theMalayalam word "aana", meaning "elephant". Rembrandt saw her inAmsterdam in 1637, and made four sketches of her in chalk.Hansken toured fairs in the
Netherlands andGermany . She appeared inHamburg in 1638, in Bremen in 1640, inRotterdam in 1641, inFrankfurt in 1646 and 1647, and inLuneburg in 1650. She was probably inLeipzig in 1649 and 1651.In the 17th century, it was believed that elephants had very advanced intellectual abilities. Following Pliny, it was thought that the elephant was the nearest to man in intelligence, and that elephants could understand speech, follow orders, and had a sense of
religion andconscience . Pliny even reports that an elephant had learned to write words in theGreek alphabet . [http://penelope.uchicago.edu/Thayer/L/Roman/Texts/Pliny_the_Elder/8*.html Latin original] and [http://penelope.uchicago.edu/holland/pliny8.html English translation] of Chapters 1 & 3, Book VIII of Pliny's "Naturalis Historia ".] Hansken did not live up to these expectations, but she could wave a flag, fire a pistol, strike a drum, hold out her front feet, pinch money from pockets, put on a hat, carry a bucket of water, and pick up coins from the ground.In July 1651, Hansken travelled to
Zurich ,Solothurn ,Bregenz andSt. Gallen , and on toRome . She visitedFlorence , where she was drawn by artistStefano della Bella . He also drew her corpse after her death on9 November 1655 .__NOTOC__ee also
*
List of historical elephants
*History of elephants in Europe References
*"This article is based on a translation of the equivalent article of the
German Wikipedia , dated2006-07-25 "Further reading
*Stephan Oettermann: "Die Schaulust am Elefanten. Eine Elephantographia Curiosa". Syndikat, Frankfurt am Main 1982. S. 44ff; S. 124-129 ISBN 3-8108-0203-4 de icon
External links
* [http://www.rijksmuseum.nl/aria/aria_assets/RP-P-FM-1854?lang=en Engraving] at the
Rijksmuseum
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