It's quite grotesque. It is odd enough that it may represent some kind of story outside of the individual artist's mind, maybe something from the Adventures of Baron Munchausen? or Voltaire's Candide?

It would be typical of the good Baron to take on an elephant armed with nothing but a sword and a bucket of bravado...

Here is a possible original source for this little tableaux ... the Hamran Arab sword hunters who allegedly hunted elephant in northern Ethiopia

https://www.africahunting.com/thread...-a-sword.9490/