Ruggiero Rescuing Angelica (1565, Met-Objekt 2181)
Original title: Ruggiero Rescuing Angelica
kurzbeschreibung
In 1565 Cornelis Cort engraved this copper plate showing the knight Ruggiero freeing the naked Angelica from a dragon's grip. The print renders the episode in finely graded greys, entirely in black and white.
Description
In the foreground a nude woman reclines on a rock, the dragon right beside her. Beyond, a wide landscape opens with trees, rocky ground and a river; a castle and bridge break the view into depth. Clouds and smoke fill the sky and drive the action forward. The arrangement draws toward a center where woman and beast stand in the foreground, while the castle forms the vanishing point behind.
Context
When the sheet was made in 1565, copper engravings were already widespread in the Netherlands as in Italy. Cort, a Fleming by birth, worked as an engraver and was prized for the precision of his technique; often he translated designs by other artists. The subject came from a literary source, likely Ludovico Ariosto's epic 'Orlando Furioso', widely read in the sixteenth century.
Impact
What sustains the print is its dense detail and a tense mood arising from the restless sky and the dragon's threatening presence. At the same time, the balanced layout gives the image calm and sharpens the contrast between the defenseless woman and the heroic rescue.
Technique
The image was engraved in copper: lines are cut into the metal plate and then printed. Cort worked with fine, precisely placed strokes, building up shadows and surfaces and achieving high detail. The monochrome scheme belongs to this printing technique and makes the contours of figures and landscape stand out clearly.
AI-generated description text
Source: Metropolitan Museum of Art · Public Domain (CC0 1.0)