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the woodcut The elephant image is drawn from a woodcut by Hans Burgkmair the Elder (1473-1531) in our collection. Burgkmair's drawing was recycled or appropriated by his son, by other artists and by Burgkmair himself. The likeness of Suleyman, variously adapted, appeared in a wide range of publications over the following century. We have recognised his friendly face in early childrens' books, natural histories, late-Renaissance political studies and accounts of warfare among the ancient Romans. The Suleyman image functioned as an early form of clip-art, with publishers and artists doing a copy and paste of the pachyderm whenever the need arose for an illustration of a scary, exotic beast. The woodcut in our collection comes, appropriately, from the chapter in a 1582 edition of Pliny the Elder's encyclopaedic Historia Mundi Naturalis describing how Alexander the Great travelled into hitherto unexplored realms, braving dangers and returning with treasures.  It is also found in Konrad Gesner's 1551 Historiae Animalium, the first modern zoology text.    next page  (Hans Burgkmair)