Orlando in gevecht met de Orka van Ebuda 1771

Curator: Let’s immerse ourselves in this curious little print. It’s titled "Orlando in gevecht met de Orka van Ebuda," created in 1771 by Daniel Nikolaus Chodowiecki, currently residing at the Rijksmuseum. A baroque engraving, wouldn't you say? Editor: It has a storybook quality! Very dramatic—a figure battling a monstrous whale while a nude woman looks on. What is this wild scene all about, and how would you interpret this work within the context of its time? Curator: Ah, a great question! To me, the artist seems to playfully explore the epic tradition while gently poking fun at it. Note the exaggerated proportions of the whale and the somewhat comical expression of the hero. It evokes the baroque era's dramatic flair, yet the artist’s unique and more accessible rendering makes me wonder, could Chodowiecki be nudging at the rigid conventions of heroic art? What do you think about the text underneath? Does it offer any hints? Editor: It looks like French... something about "Roland" being swallowed? So is this Orlando really Roland, like, *the* Roland of chivalric legend? Curator: Intriguing, isn't it? Chodowiecki, with his dry wit, likely references Ariosto’s "Orlando Furioso." By the late 18th century, those old chivalric romances felt rather absurd, I suspect. So maybe our artist aims to highlight that absurdity with a little wink and a nudge. It feels very contemporary, almost postmodern. Editor: So it’s both honoring and questioning its source material! It's so small, but it contains so much to think about. Thanks for sharing that perspective! Curator: It’s precisely within those miniature worlds that these grand narratives sometimes find their most captivating and unexpected rebirths, don’t you agree?