A biplane swoops low over a startled herd of giraffes, its pilot and passenger reaching out with comically oversized butterfly nets. The scene is both absurd and oddly plausible, capturing a moment of wild imagination: the dream of flight colliding with the exotic chase. The giraffes, rendered in bold outlines and flat washes of yellow and orange, stretch and twist their long necks in alarm, their forms echoing the rhythmic, almost musical lines of early 20th-century graphic design.

The blue sky is a solid field, flattening the space and focusing attention on the improbable drama above the savannah. The print’s title, Bloodless Giraffe Hunt, hints at a playful critique of both colonial adventure and the new technologies of the era—here, the hunt is a spectacle, not a slaughter. Created in 1911, this work by Moriz Jung belongs to a world intoxicated by invention and novelty. The early years of aviation coincided with a craze for postcards, posters, and prints that brought distant lands and impossible feats into the drawing rooms of Europe.

Artists like Jung, associated with the Viennese Secession and the flourishing of Jugendstil, delighted in the collision of fantasy and modernity. History has kept few traces of this particular print beyond its presence in the Metropolitan Museum of Art’s collection, but its wit and style are unmistakable products of their time. Look again at the wide-eyed giraffes and the determined aeronauts—here, the spirit of 1911 is alive in every line.