St. George and the Dragon
Francesco Salviati (Italian, 1510–1563)
c. 1530s
- Medium
- black chalk with red chalk, stumped
- Classification
- Drawing
- Dimensions
- Sheet: 30.3 x 43.2 cm (11 15/16 x 17 in.); Secondary Support: 43.3 x 55.1 cm (17 1/16 x 21 11/16 in.)
- Culture
- Italy
- Museum
- Cleveland Museum of Art, Drawings
- Credit line
- John L. Severance Fund
- Rights
- Public domain (CC0), as the museum states it.
- Who can see it
- Teens profiles and older: its subject is for older viewers (war, death, the Passion, drink or the like). How works are placed
View at the Cleveland Museum of Art
About this work
According to a legend based on Greek myth, as Saint George passed through Libya, he rescued a king’s daughter who had been left as a sacrifice to placate a vicious dragon. In gratitude for being delivered from the monster’s tyranny, the king’s subjects converted to Christianity. Here George wears armor in the ancient style based on Roman sculpture. Classical armor in Renaissance art was reserved for elite male subjects as a sign of their virtue. As a military saint, George’s attire conveys his antiquity as an early Christian hero (died about AD 303), conferring on him a sense of Roman authority and gravity.
