Astolf Riding Away with the Head of Orill

The story comes from Orlando Furioso, the sprawling 16th-century poem by Ludovico Ariosto that Böcklin liked to draw on. The rider is the knight Astolfo, and the head in his hand belonged to Orrilo, a robber who could not be killed the ordinary way. Cut off his arm, his leg, even his head, and Orrilo would simply pick it up and put it back. His whole life hung on one enchanted hair. Astolfo beheads him, gallops off with the head so the body cannot recover it, and searches the hairs until he finds the fatal one. Böcklin painted this in 1873 and shows the flight itself, the severed head held out at arm's length and the headless body still riding somewhere behind.