Draught animal in front of the picture wagon. The unicorn as a Subject of iconographic research

Aby Warburg described the migration of pictorial motifs across time and space with the metaphor of the image cart. This cart, to extend the metaphor, is drawn by the unicorn – the mythical creature that, like no other, has populated the art of various cultures for centuries. Stefan Trinks, co-author of the exhibition catalogue, and Michael Philipp, curator of the exhibition, discuss questions of unicorn research such as the transition of the motif from the sacred to the profane, the unicorn’s role in early modern science, and the significance of depictions of the never-seen. 

Stefan Trinks studied art history, history, as well as classical and medieval archaeology. Since 2017, he has been a private lecturer at the Institute for Art and Image History at Humboldt University in Berlin and head of the arts section at the Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung. 

Draught animal in front of the picture wagon. The unicorn as a Subject of iconographic research
Talk with Stefan Trinks & Michael Philipp (in German)
Thu, 4 December 2025, 7 p.m. 
Museum Barberini, Auditorium 
Ticket: €20 (includes admission to the exhibition on that day from 5:30 p.m.)