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25.04.2023

The American mastodon was a species of proboscidean from the extinct genus mammoth. Transporting the precious teeth is a challenge even for specialised art logisticians.

The painting of rhinoceros Clara usually hangs in the Staatliches Museum Schwerin. Since the house is closed for three years due to renovation work, Clara went on tour at great expense - including to the famous Rijksmuseum in Amsterdam.

Profession/career: This is how exciting working for an art logistics specialist can be

Cologne/Frechen, April 2023 - In the 18th century, she was a sensation at fairs, princely courts and popular festivals all over Europe. At the age of eleven, she was three and a half metres long, 1.70 metres high and weighed 2,500 kilograms. We are talking about the rhinoceros Clara, whose life-size image by Jean-Baptiste Oudry usually hangs in the Staatliches Museum Schwerin. Due to renovation work, the museum has been closed for three years since 2021 - and Clara went on a journey. First to a depot in Hamburg and then, in the summer of 2022, as the centrepiece of an exhibition at the world-famous Rijksmuseum in Amsterdam, where the major Vermeer exhibition is currently on show. Logisticians who specialise in moving precious and sensitive objects are responsible for transports such as the painting of Clara. But even for them, transporting Clara was a challenge.

Clara in the special crate

In addition to a sure instinct and a sense of proportion when moving it through the museum, the sheer size of the painting required a correspondingly large-volume transport container. A crate measuring 340 by 511 centimetres was manufactured in the Cologne factory of the special logistics company Hasenkamp; the wooden protective corpus weighs 832 kilograms. "In our company history, the transport crate made exclusively for Clara represents a novelty," explains Managing Director Dr Thomas Schneider. The Cologne-based company with a long tradition has specialised in the transport of art and cultural goods in its "Fine Arts" division: from Tutankhamun's death mask and paintings by Leonardo da Vinci to the Nebra Sky Disk and the clay warriors of the Terracotta Army. "High-end climate-controlled crates guarantee the entire transport of sensitive art objects over a stable temperature and constant humidity. They are shipped worldwide by air and sea freight or by truck," says Schneider.

Employees can constantly change their job profile and switch "horizontally".

In addition to "Fine Arts", Hasenkamp operates the Relocations, Archive Depot and Final Mile Service divisions as a subcontractor for large parcel service providers. "We offer numerous international jobs and career opportunities in scheduling and logistics, in the warehouse and carpentry, as well as in IT and transport. We also provide apprenticeships and offer career opportunities during and after university," explains Thomas Schneider. Interested parties can find more information at https://hasenkamp.com/en/career/. Schneider points out the special attraction of the jobs: "With us, each and every employee can permanently change the job profile and, after an internal training, change quasi-horizontally; variety is the cherry on the cake. (djd)