St. George (Raphael, Louvre)

St. George and the Dragon

Artist	Raphael
Year	c. 1504
Type	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.

History

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.

The Uffizi Gallery has a pen-and-wash cartoon for the Saint George (seen here below).

Raphael's cartoon for St George and the Dragon

Notes

↑ Cf. Louvre entry
↑ Champlin, John Denison; Charles Callahan Perkins (1913). Cyclopedia of painters and paintings. C. Scribner's sons. p. 258. Retrieved 26 June 2010.
↑ Muntz, Eugene (May 2005 (originally 1888)). Raphael: His Life, Works, and Times. Kessinger Publishing. p. 92. ISBN 978-0-7661-9396-3. Retrieved 26 June 2010. Check date values in: |date= (help)
↑ G. P. Lomazzo, Trattato Dell' Arte Della Pittura Scultura Ed Architettura, (reprint) Kessinger Publishing (2010).
↑ Cartwright, Julia (18 October 2006). Early Work of Raphael. Kessinger Publishing. p. 17. ISBN 978-1-4254-9624-1. Retrieved 26 June 2010.

Raphael

Early works	The Kinnaird Resurrection Baronci Altarpiece St. Sebastian Oddi Altar Solly Madonna Mond Crucifixion Three Graces St Michael Portrait of a Man Connestabile Madonna Madonna and Child The Marriage of the Virgin Vision of a Knight St George Colonna Altarpiece Portrait of Perugino ¹ Madonna and Child with the Book

Florentine period	Portrait of Elisabetta Gonzaga ² Portrait of Emilia Pia da Montefeltro ² Portrait of Guidobaldo da Montefeltro Self-portrait Madonna of the Grand Duke Ansidei Madonna Young Man with an Apple Christ Blessing Madonna Terranuova Madonna of the Goldfinch Madonna of the Meadow Esterhazy Madonna Small Cowper Madonna St George and the Dragon La donna gravida Portrait of Agnolo Doni Portrait of Maddalena Doni Madonna of the Pinks Young Woman with Unicorn Madonna with Beardless St Joseph Saint Catherine of Alexandria Canigiani Holy Family La belle jardinière Deposition of Christ Portrait of a Young Woman Tempi Madonna Madonna Colonna Madonna de Bogota

Roman period	Portrait of Cardinal Alessandro Farnese La disputa The School of Athens Madonna of Loreto Aldobrandini Madonna Madonna with the Blue Diadem Portrait of a Cardinal Alba Madonna Niccolini-Cowper Madonna The Parnassus Cardinal and Theological Virtues The Prophet Isaiah The Expulsion of Heliodorus from the Temple Portrait of Pope Julius II Madonna of Foligno Madonna with the Fish Triumph of Galatea Sistine Madonna Madonna della seggiola Madonna dell'Impannata Madonna della tenda The Fire in the Borgo The Meeting of Leo the Great and Attila Deliverance of Saint Peter The Mass at Bolsena Portrait of Bindo Altoviti The Sibyls Ecstasy of St. Cecilia Portrait of Balthasar Castiglione La donna velata Portrait of Tommaso Inghirami Palazzo Branconio dell'Aquila Portrait of Andrea Navagero and Agostino Beazzano Portrait of Cardinal Bibbiena Church of Sant'Eligio degli Orefici Creation of the World Transfiguration Portrait of Pope Leo X with Two Cardinals Christ Falling on the Way to Calvary The Holy Family of Francis I Ezekiel's Vision St. Michael Vanquishing Satan Madonna of the Rose Self-portrait with a friend La fornarina Visitation Portrait of a Young Man Miraculous Draught of Fishes Christ's Charge to Peter Healing of the Lame Man Death of Ananias Stoning of St. Stephen Conversion of the Proconsul Sacrifice at Lystra St Paul in Prison St Paul Preaching in Athens Palazzo Jacopo da Brescia

¹ Also attributed to Lorenzo di Credi ² Attributed

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St. George (Raphael, Louvre)

History

Notes

Further reading