Review: Animal prints exhibition is full of surprises

There’s a famous 17th century print of a Rhinoceros by Albrecht Durer in the British Museum that he produced after having the animal described to him by a friend. As you might expect, it’s a mixture of fact and fiction but such a convincingly exotic mixture that it’s given his armour-plated beast quasi-mythological status.

You can see it at Compton Verney along with two unfailingly accurate Goyas, a superb Rembrandt, an over the top Rubens and an anonymous 16th century roundel of rabbits sharing three ears that optically register as six. There’s also a 1770s anatomical study of a shark’s formidable teeth and a great deal more.

Animals, you’ll have gathered, is the theme but the variety is impressive. The selection of prints ranges from the religious to the domestic with a 17th century tabby that you feel you could stroke and a dangerously alert porcupine that suggests you’d better not. Myth, satire and caricature are all here, with animals as Gillray and Cruikshank’s political stand-ins. It’s not a spectacular show. Early methods of production impose their own limitations but as a historical survey that’s full of surprises, it can’t be faulted.

Accompanying the exhibition is a collection of work from the Leicester Print Workshop. It’s conceived as an animal alphabet based on Enid Marx’s original set in the Compton Verney and Pallant House collections, with each printmaker being assigned a letter. It’s a bold idea that has yielded a set of prints that are always fresh, sometimes colourful, and often cleverly witty.

Peter McCarthy