Known for his amazing automatons and clocks, James Cox was tremendously inventive. This rhinoceros clock was inspired by the real-life story of a rhinoceros named Miss Clara. Miss Clara became famous during years of touring Europe in the eighteenth century, when she was presented at almost all the European courts. There was a deep fascination for this exotic animal. Rhinoceroses had been drawn by several artists, but their depictions always seemed slightly clumsy or odd. Artists knew human and animal anatomy; they just didn’t know how to represent this amazing creature. Cox’s depiction is influenced by drawings by Albrecht Dürer. Cox didn’t work alone. Among his skilled workers was Jean-Joseph Merlin, who came from the small city of Huy in today’s Belgium near Liège. Merlin worked on Cox’s mechanisms and was probably involved in the making of this clock. He is also thought to have invented inline skates. While watching the mechanism functioning, and hearing it chiming, I can easily imagine how this clock was a great source of fascination and entertainment
Musical Automaton Rhinoceros Clock
The "rhinoceros mania" began in Europe when a rhinoceros from India named Miss Clara was brought by the Dutch East India Company to Rotterdam in 1741 and exhibited in several cities until her death in London in 1758. Standing on a white marble pedestal and carrying a musical clock on its back, this rhinoceros figure is modeled after a celebrated print by Albrecht Dürer (1471–1528). The animal supports a small edifice that includes a clock and jeweled flowers. The chime mechanism, concealed on the back of the rhinoceros, strikes every half hour and can play two different tunes. The clock and its pendant may have been part of a more complex automaton that is described in Cox's catalogue in 1774.
