St George Fighting the Dragon

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St George Fighting the Dragon: Raphael

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Art Type: Oil Painting
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Raphael Oil Painting - St George Fighting the Dragon

Keywords: George, Fighting, Dragon

Work Overview: St. George and the Dragon (Saint George Fighting the Dragon)
Artist Raphael
Year c. 1504
Medium Oil on wood
Dimensions 31 cm × 27 cm (12 in × 11 in)
Location Louvre, Paris

St. George or St. George and the Dragon is a small painting by the Italian Renaissance artist Raphael. It is housed in the Louvre in Paris. A later version of the same subject is the St. George in the National Gallery of Art in Washington, D.C.

This painting and the equally small Saint Michael, also in the Louvre,[1] are a pair. In the Mazarin Collection they were joined together, forming a diptych, and bound in leather. Louis XIV acquired them from Mazarin's heirs in 1661.[2]

Saint George has sometimes been ascribed to the artist's Roman period, because the horse resembles one of the horses of Monte Cavallo (the Quirinal Palace). However, Raphael could easily have known this particular horse from a drawing of it, done by one of Leonardo's pupils.[3] To judge by the still somewhat naïve and Peruginesque style of the painting, it is really one of Raphael's early works, dating from about 1504. He did another painting of the same subject a little later (the mentioned panel in Washington D. C.), and towards the end of his life he painted a large Sant Michael which is also in the Louvre.

Giovanni Lomazzo, in his Trattato della Pittura (1584), mentions a Saint George by Raphael, commissioned by the Duke of Urbino, which was painted on a little chess-board (tavoliere). According to the old catalogues the small Saint Michael, if not the saint George as well, had a draught-board on the back which is now covered over.[4] Examination by means of X-rays and infrared has not confirmed this statement. In the abovementioned book, Lomazzo seems to have confused various pictures of the same subject.[5] If one can rely to some extent on his late and somewhat muddled testimony, it is possible that the two paintings in the Louvre were painted for the Duke of Urbino.

Appointed to the order of the Garter in 1504 by Henry VII of England, Guido da Montefeltro, Duke of Urbino, commissioned Raphael to paint a picture of Saint George as a gift for the King, and appointed Baldassare Castiglione, author of The Courtier, to bear it to England. Until recently, the composition of the same subject in the National Gallery of Art, Washington was identified as the painting sent to England. However, it is debated now which of the two paintings was really sent to England.

Saint George is one of the most popular of Christian saints and is the patron saint of England. He was also a favourite subject of Renaissance artists, who depicted him slaying the dragon. According to legend, this monster infested a marsh outside the walls of a city and, with his fiery breath, could poison all who came near. In order to placate the dragon, the city furnished him with a few sheep every day. But when the supply of sheep was exhausted, the sons and daughters of the citizens became the victims. The lot fell one day on the princess, and the King reluctantly sent her forth to the dragon. Saint George happened to be riding by and, seeing the maiden in tears, commended himself to God and transfixed the dragon with his spear.

St George's lance has been broken in the struggle, but the proud knight is about to vanquish the dragon with the sword, and so free the princess, who is fleeing on the right. By the middle of the 16th century this panel formed a pair with Raphael's St. Michael. Even though the latter was painted somewhat earlier, the fact that they are the same size and have a comparable iconography implies that Raphael intended that the saints should belong together.

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