Long before The Rhino Keeper had a publishing contract or a gorgeous cover or even the words THE END on its last draft, I held in my mind’s eye the many artifacts and objects de art that existed within its pages. 

I sought the pieces via the internet and museum archives, and lucky for me, one artist was prolific enough to have a masterwork one short plane ride away.

Johann Joaquin Kaendler was one of the most important porcelain artists of the 18th century. His work in the German Meissen manufactory propelled the company to a legacy status that still exists today. Meissen Porcelain is known world-wide as one of the most brilliant porcelain manufacturers in the world, and that status was being built at the same time as Clara the rhino traipsed Europe with her ship captain caretaker, Douwemout van der Meer.

Douwe and Clara visited the manufactory, then located in a literal castle-on-a-hill in Meissen, where Clara was drawn and sketched in order to make a porcelain mold of a rhino that would correct the incorrect. Instead of an anatomically correct rhino, the artists relied on the innocently wrong woodcut by Albrecht Durer of a rhino for years to model their porcelain rhinos. After Clara came, the image of a rhino changed dramatically.

The porcelain animals made by Kaendler are incredible, to say the least. While I was eager to find a rhino, they are not as prominent in the states, and so I gleefully settled for another masterwork: Kaendler’s vulture. 

Located at the Art Institute of Chicago, this nearly life-size bird was in a glass case in the middle of the Applied Arts of Europe exhibit. I saw it twice, marveling at its single brush strokes, thickness, and the wild, caged-bird impact. 

Then, I contacted the museum to see if they had any pieces behind the scenes I could perhaps take a peek at to see some of the more interesting aspects, mainly the bottoms!

Lucky for me, curators Kit and Mairead had recently taken apart the exhibit to remodel and Kaendler’s pieces rested behind the scenes, ready for a museum-glove moment. On a chilly day in March, 2024, I made my way to the employee’s entrance of the Art Institute and was led to storage, where Kaendler’s vulture waited for me.

Goosebumps (or should I say vulturebumps) are an understatement. To see something sculpted by the master of porcelain himself was an incredible experience. But then they showed me more: Kaendler’s monkey band, a whimsical grouping of hand-sized monkeys playing instruments, and even more astonishing, one of the origins of European porcelain. 

Redware by young Johann Friedrich Böttger. The diamond smooth, brick colored ware is exceptionally special, made in desperation by a man whose main goal in life was to discover how to replicate Chinese porcelain. He never truly succeeded.

While I did not see a Clara the rhino, I did see enough to satiate my own porcelain obsession, and I am wildly grateful for the staff and curators of the Art Institute for flipping that priceless vulture upside down for me. 

Read more about the porcelain maker, and what his reaction to seeing a real rhino would have been in The Rhino Keeper, available now. 

About the Author

Jillian Forsberg is a historian and author with a master’s degree in public history from Wichita State University. Her research on little-known historical events led her to discover the true story behind her first novel, The Rhino Keeper. In addition to being the former editor for Wichita State’s The Fairmont Folio, Jillian is an essayist whose articles have been published in academic journals. With a passion for 18th-century history, Jillian can also be found gardening, exploring antique malls, or reading every label at a museum. Vintage dresses are Jillian's clothing of choice, except when she's at the zoo. She lives in Wichita, Kansas, with her husband, child, and pets. She's currently working on her second novel.