Guided by Saint Michael, Silence blinds and deafens the Saracens: A scene from Ariosto's Orlando Furioso

One of a group of approximately 176 drawings after Ludovico Ariosto's epic poem Orlando Furioso which tells the story of the knight Orlando who falls in love with the Saracen princess, and his subsequent adventures and eventual madness as he tries to win her. Originally written for the Duke of Este at the court of Ferrara in the early sixteenth century, the eighteenth century saw several lavishly illustrated editions of Ariosto's epic. It is thought that Fragonard might have become involved in such a project in the 1780s when his paintings commissions had dwindled. The drawings for Orlando Furioso demonstrate a careful reading and clear understanding of the text (it has been suggested that Fragonard read the poem in its original Italian). However, the drawings are spread out unevenly among the poem's 46 cantos, with the majority focusing on the first half of the tale. While the drawings are legible in relation to the text, their style is such that they could not be easily transferred into engravings, for which it has always been speculated that they had been intended. The obvious care with which he conceived the entire series indicates that this was an important project for the artist.
The present drawing is one of fourteen scenes depicting episodes from the fourteenth canto of the poem.