St George and the Dragon

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St George and the Dragon: Raphael

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

Keywords: George, Dragon

Work Overview: St. George and the Dragon
Artist Raphael
Year 1504–1506
Medium Oil on wood
Dimensions 28.5 cm × 21.5 cm (11.2 in × 8.5 in)
Location National Gallery of Art, Washington, D.C.

St. George and the Dragon is a small cabinet painting by the Italian High Renaissance artist Raphael, painted between 1504 and 1506, and now in the National Gallery of Art in Washington, D.C. The saint wears the blue garter of the English Order of the Garter, reflecting the award of this decoration in 1504 to Raphael's patron Guidobaldo da Montefeltro, Duke of Urbino, by King Henry VII of England. The first word of the order's motto, "HONI" can be made out. The painting was presumably commissioned by the Duke, either to present to the English emissary who brought the regalia to Urbino, Sir Gilbert Talbot, or to Henry himself—recent scholarship suggests the latter. The honour paid to a minor Italian ruler reflected Henry's appreciation of the cultural prestige of Renaissance Italy as much as any diplomatic purpose.

The traditional subject, Saint George and the Dragon, combining chivalry and Christianity, is appropriate for the occasion; like his father, Guidobaldo was a condottiero, or proprietor of a band of mercenary soldiers. In the early stages of his career Raphael painted a number of tiny cabinet paintings, including another St George in the Louvre, and the Vision of a Knight in the National Gallery in London.

By 1627 the painting belonged to William Herbert, 3rd Earl of Pembroke (1580-1630), and was at Wilton House in Wiltshire. Either the 3rd or 4th earl presented it to King Charles I of England. After the English Civil War it was sold in one of the sales of the Royal Collection at Somerset House in London on 19 December 1651. Soon after it was in France. The painting was later a highlight of the Pierre Crozat collection which was acquired through Diderot's mediation by Catherine II of Russia in 1772. For a century and a half, the panel hung in the Imperial Hermitage Museum. It was one of the most popular paintings in the entire collection of the Tsars. In March 1931 it was part of the Soviet sale of Hermitage paintings, and bought by Andrew Mellon, as part of his founding donation to the National Gallery of Art in Washington D.C. This and other foundational artworks, including paintings by Jan van Eyck, Sandro Botticelli, and Titian, helped place the National Gallery among the most significant collections of Renaissance art.

The St Michael and St George and the Dragon in the Louvre, and the St George of the National Gallery in Washington are bound together both by their subject - an armed youth fighting a dragon - and by stylistic elements. All three are assigned to the Florentine period and echo those stimuli which Raphael received from the great masters who worked in Florence or whose paintings were visible there. The influence of Leonardo - whose fighting warriors from the Battle of Anghiari (1505) in the Palazzo della Signoria provided an extraordinary example of martial art (the painting deteriorated very rapidly because of shortcomings in Leonardo's experimental technique and so is no longer visible) - predominates in these works. But references to Flemish painting - particularly that of Hieronymus Bosch (the glaring light and humanoid monsters which populate the St Michael are characteristic of Bosch) - suggest the environment of Urbino, where Northern influences were still quite vivid.

These small panels are indicative of a moment in which the painter gathers the stylistic fruits of what he has assimilated so far and, at the same time, poses pictorial problems which will be developed in the future.

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We all know dragons are only slain in fairy tales, yet the power of such a story has real-world applications, as the English who choose to mark St George’s Day today – and even those who do not – are well aware.

When an Italian nobleman sought to recognise the honour bestowed on him by a distant court, he reached for this legend, commissioning one of the greatest artists of his age to make the most accomplished, prestigious tribute money could buy.

The tale of St George, a third-century Christian soldier who saved the daughter of a pagan king by slaying a dragon, first found popularity in medieval Europe. The fifteenth-century Italian artist Raphael may have come across the story in the popular Italian collection of hagiographies, The Golden Legend.

However, Raphael painted two versions of the St George myth, not for own satisfaction, but for Guidobaldo da Montefeltro, the Duke of Urbino, a prestigious and refined nobleman. The earlier, less-accomplished version of this scene, dating from 1504, is in the Louvre's collection, while the later, better painting is in the National Gallery of Art in Washington DC.

Montefeltro may have derived particular enjoyment from the pictures. The duke led a professional army, and, in the early sixteenth century, after years of conflict and disorder, Urbino was enjoying a period of stability and splendour; the sight of a triumphant knight would have been welcome.

Morever, Montefeltro had been awarded the Order of the Garter by England’s King Henry VII to strengthen the two courts' allegiance; and so the choice of St George is apt. The garter, the oldest and most senior order of chivalry in England was in part dedicated to St George, who is also the Patron Saint of England. Raphael's 1506 painting (at the top of this story) notes the link directly. In the picture, St George wears a garter upon which bears the word HONI, the first in the order’s motto ‘Honi soit qui mal y pense (Disgraced be he who thinks ill of it).

However, Montefeltro did commission the work to burnish his own reputation, but as a tribute to the foreign court that had honoured him. Latter-day scholars believe the painting was a gift for the English king’s emissary, Gilbert Talbot, who was also a Knight of the Garter. Italy’s artistry was far better than England’s at this time, as both courts would have known, and so Montefeltro's gift projected the refinement and elegance of Urbino across Europe.

Raphael’s particular skill lay in depicting figures in a life-like manner, without having to rely on life models. As Gombrich explains in The Story of Art, “just as Michelangelo was found to have reached the highest peak in the mastery of the human body, Raphael was seen to have accomplished what the older generation had striven so hard to achieve: the perfect harmonious composition of freely moving figures.”

This harmony was the product of Raphael’s imagination, not his careful observance. When asked once asked by a courtier where he had found a model of such beauty for his 1512-14 painting, The Nymph Galeta, Raphael replied that he did not copy any specific model but rather followed ‘a certain idea’ he had formed in his mind. In so doing, Gombrich explains, the artist “abandoned the faithful portrayal of nature which had been the ambition of so many Quattrocento artists.”

No one would have been so foolish as to ask where he had found so fiercesome a dragon, yet it was this figurative abandonment that allowed Raphael to paint such fantastic scenes in such a lifelike manner, and allowed his patrons to put such skill to pracitical use.

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