ABSTRACT
Orfelin was a unique personality in his own time, both in terms of erudition and of the legacy he left in Serbian Baroque art in the fields of engraving, calligraphy, poetry and education. His contemporaries and immediate successors glorified him as the most talented and learned among Serbian artists in the early eighteenth century. He was also appreciated as the only one equally skilful with the quill and the burin. Both in his literary and artistic work, Orfelin surpassed all of his contemporaries and even managed to stay a step ahead, which frequently proved to be more a curse than a blessing. He was the only artist in the Archbishopric who created a complete festival synopsis, the first to reach the highest level of the engraver’s skills and become respected in Vienna, and the sole artist who established himself as a serious historian and wrote a monumental work on Peter the Great. He was also a teacher, owner of the largest library of his time in the Archbishopric and the founder of the first publishing house. Even when his stylistic merits could not be compared with the most successful artists in the Empire, it must not be forgotten that Orfelin was a recognized and respected member of Jacob Schmutzer’s Imperial Engraving Academy and that he received Imperial rewards and grants for his calligraphic work. His graphic work, particularly later in his life, was constantly valued in Vienna and in many cases held in high esteem. Within the framework of Serbian Baroque art, Orfelin comes across as a truly remarkable figure whose life and oeuvre is difficult to compare with any of the artists in the Archbishopric during the eighteenth century, and as we shall see further on, as the only one who indeed possessed all the necessary knowledge to be the author of the Festive Greeting.
