The ma­gi­cal uni­corn at the Mu­se­um Bar­be­ri­ni: a fa­sci­na­ting jour­ney th­rough art and myth

An ex­tra­or­di­na­ry ex­hi­bi­ti­on de­di­ca­ted to one of the most fa­sci­na­ting my­thi­cal crea­tures in cul­tu­ral histo­ry is ope­ning its doors at the Mu­se­um Bar­be­ri­ni Pots­dam un­til 1 Fe­bru­ary 2026: “Uni­corn. The my­thi­cal crea­tu­re in art” pres­ents the mul­ti-laye­red sym­bo­lism and ar­tis­tic de­pic­tion of the uni­corn from an­ti­qui­ty to the pre­sent day for the first time on this sca­le. The trail of this my­thi­cal crea­tu­re can be tra­ced th­rough the most di­ver­se cul­tures — from its ori­g­ins in In­dia to Chi­na and Eu­ro­pe, whe­re it play­ed a cen­tral ro­le in Chris­ti­an art in par­ti­cu­lar. The uni­corn em­bo­di­ed and still em­bo­dies see­mingly con­tra­dic­to­ry cha­rac­te­ristics: Free­dom and in­do­mi­ta­bi­li­ty as well as pu­ri­ty and in­no­cence, na­tu­ral­ness and ten­der af­fec­tion.

The com­pre­hen­si­ve show brings tog­e­ther around 150 works and ob­jects by im­portant ar­tists such as Al­brecht Dü­rer, Ar­nold Böck­lin, Re­né Magrit­te and con­tem­po­ra­ry po­si­ti­ons from Re­bec­ca Horn to Ma­rie Cé­ci­le Th­ijs. The ran­ge of ex­hi­bits is im­pres­si­ve: in ad­di­ti­on to pain­tings and prints, it in­cludes sculp­tures, pre­cious ma­nu­scripts, ma­gni­fi­cent tapestries, mo­dern vi­deo works and ra­re Kunst­kam­mer ob­jects. In­ter­na­tio­nal len­ders such as the Me­tro­po­li­tan Mu­se­um of Art, the Lou­vre, the Uf­fi­zi and the Ri­jks­mu­se­um have sent their most va­luable uni­corn de­pic­tions to Pots­dam — ma­ny of which are on­ly lent out ex­tre­me­ly ra­re­ly.

The his­to­ri­cal de­ve­lo­p­ment of the idea of the uni­corn is par­ti­cu­lar­ly fa­sci­na­ting: In the Midd­le Ages, no­bo­dy doub­ted the exis­tence of this crea­tu­re, as it was re­gard­ed as a bi­bli­cal ani­mal and its sup­po­sed horn as pro­of of its rea­li­ty. It was not un­til the 17th cen­tu­ry that na­tu­ra­lists reve­a­led the­se “uni­corn horns” to be nar­whal tee­th. But even this sci­en­ti­fic rea­li­sa­ti­on did not­hing to di­mi­nish the uni­corn’s ap­peal — on the con­tra­ry: to­day we en­coun­ter the my­thi­cal crea­tu­re ever­y­whe­re in pop cul­tu­re, ad­ver­ti­sing and child­ren’s rooms. The ex­hi­bi­ti­on at the Mu­se­um Bar­be­ri­ni in­vi­tes vi­si­tors to trace this “ma­gi­cal crea­tu­re” and un­der­stand why the uni­corn can be con­side­red the “source and fu­ture” of our dreams and de­si­res.