Woodcut after the Strasbourg town hall image, from Conrad Gessner's Historiae Animalium (1604 edition).
Featured on PDR in the essay Decoding the Morse: The History of 16th-Century Narcoleptic Walruses
Amongst the assorted curiosities described in Olaus Magnus' 1555 tome on Nordic life was the morse — a hirsute, fearsome walrus-like beast, that was said to snooze upon cliffs while hanging by its teeth. Natalie Lawrence explores the career of this chimerical wonder, shaped by both scholarly images of a fabulous North and the grisly corporeality of the trade in walrus skins, teeth, and bone.
Also appearing in the essay…
Other works by the artist in the archive…
Morse (walrus), after an effigy on the wall of Strasbourg town hall.
Artist
Date
1604
From
Historiae Animalium
