Sue Coe
Chunee, the Elephant Who Wouldn't Die

Chunee, the Elephant Who Wouldn't Die
Chunee, the Elephant Who Wouldn't Die
Chunee, the Elephant Who Wouldn't Die
ArtistBritish, born 1951, active United States
CultureBritish
Titles
  • Chunee, the Elephant Who Wouldn't Die
Date2018
MediumOffset lithograph on wove paper, edition 64/100
DimensionsImage/Sheet: 19 7/8 × 28 1/8 in. (50.5 × 71.5 cm)
Credit LineGift of Cynthia Nourse Thompson
Object number2019.673
Not on view

Explore Further

Object Type
Provenance Research Ongoing Inscriptions, Signatures and Marks
Recto: Inscribed in graphite, bottom left corner: 64/100.
Recto: Inscribed in black printed ink, below image matrix, bottom edge: London’s first proper zoo, was at the Exeter Exchange in Covent Garden. Chunee the Elephant, lived for 17 years on the second story along with other animals in iron cages. Chunee did tricks, [space] taking off hats/of customers with his trunk, and returning them. Lord Byron said he wished Chunee was his butler. On Feb 1826, Chunee had a septic tusk and stopped doing tricks. He started to break out of his cage, and fearing he would fall/through the floor, they tried to kill him with arsenic, which he refused. Soldiers shot 152 musket balls into him, and his agonized cries could be heard down the Strand. He tried to do his tricks. He was finally killed by a sabre/attached to a pole, and was known as ‘the elephant who refused to die.’ This image was printed by a Heidelberg offset press, that . weighs the same as Chunee.
Recto: Signed and dated in graphite, right bottom edge: Sue Coe 2018
Recto: Two Chopmarks, stacked vertically, at lower right edge: [unknown] / The University of the Arts MFA Book Arts + Printmaking

Cataloguing data may change with further research.

If you have questions about this work of art or the MFAH Online Collection please contact us.

Second Millennium
Sue Coe
1997, published 1998
Screenprint in colors on wove paper, edition 42/100
2015.509.1
Meat and Pork for Your Fork
Sue Coe
1987
Lithograph, edition 7/50
88.411
Géométrie (Geometry)
Jean Dubuffet
1959
Lithograph on wove paper, edition 64/75
94.12
Cardbird II
Robert Rauschenberg
1971
Photo color offset and screenprint on cardboard, tape, plastic (collage), edition 64/75
84.215.2
Romance in the Age of Raygun
Sue Coe
1984
Oil and mixed media on canvas
2007.540
Image received from curatorial
Walton Ford
2016
Aquatint in colors, etching with hard ground, soft ground, spit bite, sugar lift, and drypoint, printed in six colors on wove paper, edition 64/65
2018.396
Chimera
Ida Kohlmeyer
1994
Screenprint in colors on wove paper, edition 64/135
2015.193
Untitled
Horst Janssen
1975
Etching and aquatint on wove paper, edition 64/70
91.2083
Joan Miró
1972
Portfolio with four lithographs, edition 64/200
91.2059.1-.15
Die Eltem (The Parents)
Käthe Kollwitz
1921–1922
Woodcut on wove paper, version c/d, state V/V, edition 89/100
2023.453
Banking at 4000 Feet
Christopher Nevinson
1917, published 1918
Lithograph with scraping on wove paper, edition of 100 unsigned, aside from an edition of 200 signed
2020.28
Overall recto.
Lucas Johnson
1970
Lithograph on wove paper, edition 36/100
2023.777