Saint George and the Dragon

probably 1518

Sodoma

Artist, Sienese, 1477 - 1549

Set in a landscape, a young man holding a broken lance lunges over the neck of his horse to look at the body of a forest-green dragon on the ground beneath them, while a young woman looks on from our left in this vertical painting. The man and woman both have light skin. The horse and rider are in the center, facing our right, and the man’s scarlet-red cape flutters upward. His right arm, to our left, is bent sharply as he thrusts the shard of the red-and-white striped lance down. His eyebrows are drawn together, and his mouth is open, the corner we can see pulled down. Form-fitting, royal-purple armor protects his torso, and he wears a bronze and silver helmet topped with red and white feathers. His muscular arms are bare, as is the knee we can see between a celery-green skirt and a gray sandal that covers most of that shin. His saddle and saddle blanket are blueberry blue. The brown horse has a dark mane and tail. It lunges forward and down with mouth wide open and teeth bared, so it trounces or pins the dragon beneath its front legs. The dragon is curled in a ball on the lower right side of the composition with its head wrenched backward onto its body. Crimson-red drops of blood drip from its gaping mouth. The young woman stands on the left side of the composition with one knee kneeling on a tall rock. She faces us, wearing a cranberry-red gown under a gold cloak that drapes from her right shoulder, to our left, across her back, and over the other knee. A delicate gold crown rests on her dark blond hair, and she lifts her eyes to look up at the man. Her hands are raised in front of her chest, with gold bracelets and chains hanging from her wrists. In the lower right corner of the painting, a severed foot, arm, and two heads lie near the dragon. Trees with tall, narrow, deep green canopies and one tree with spindly branches lined with delicate leaves separate the scene in front of us from the landscape beyond. In the distance, a city of white stone buildings cluster on a steep hill that rises to our left from a harbor. Tiny in scale, about a dozen people are gathered on two roofs of a multi-level structure, while others move on foot or on horseback down a road leading toward us. The powder-blue sky is scattered with puffy, white clouds. A winged angel surrounded by a butter-yellow aura hovers in the upper right corner.

Media Options

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On View

West Building Main Floor, Gallery 19

Artwork overview

  • Medium

    oil on panel

  • Credit Line

    Samuel H. Kress Collection

  • Dimensions

    overall: 137.8 x 97.6 cm (54 1/4 x 38 7/16 in.)
    framed: 174.3 x 130.8 x 11.4 cm (68 5/8 x 51 1/2 x 4 1/2 in.)

  • Accession

    1952.5.76

Artwork history & notes

Provenance

Probably commissioned c. 1518 by Alfonso I d'Este, Duke of Ferrara. Purchased from an unknown collector or dealer in Siena by Bertram Arthur Talbot, 17th Earl of Shrewsbury [d. 1856], Alton Towers, Stafford, England; (Shrewsbury sale, Christie & Manson, London, 4 July 1857, no. 151). Sir John Charles Robinson [1824-1913], London; sold 1868 to Sir Francis Cook, 1st Bt. [1817-1901], Doughty House, Richmond, Surrey;[1] by inheritance to his son, Sir Frederick Lucas Cook, 2nd Bt. [1844-1920], Doughty House; by inheritance to his son, Sir Herbert Frederick Cook, 3rd Bt. [1868-1939], Doughty House; by inheritance to his son, Sir Francis Ferdinand Maurice Cook, 4th Bt. [1907-1978], Doughty House, and Cothay Manor, Somerset;[2] (Francis A. Drey, London); sold February 1947 to the Samuel H. Kress Foundation, New York;[3] gift 1952 to NGA.
[1] The painting is included in Robinson's Memoranda on Fifty Pictures, London, 1868: no. 9. Most of the paintings described were sold to Cook the same year.
[2] The record of the sale to the Kress Foundation (see note 3) states that the painting is from "the collection of the late Sir Herbert Cook of Richmond (Surrey) England." The 4th Bt. inherited the collection and managed its dispersal after World War II with the trustees of the Cook estate.
[3] Drey sold five Cook paintings to the Kress Foundation, including the Sodoma (bill of sale dated 18 Feruary 1947; copy in NGA curatorial files). See also The Kress Collection Digital Archive, https://kress.nga.gov/Detail/objects/1820.

Associated Names

Bibliography

1951

  • Einstein, Lewis. Looking at Italian Pictures in the National Gallery of Art. Washington, 1951: 61-63, repro.

  • Paintings and Sculpture from the Kress Collection Acquired by the Samuel H. Kress Foundation 1945-1951. Introduction by John Walker, text by William E. Suida. National Gallery of Art, Washington, 1951: 94, no. 37, repro.

1952

  • Frankfurter, Alfred M. "Interpreting Masterpieces: Twenty-four Paintings from the Kress Collection." Art News Annual 16 (1952): 98-99, repro. 95

1956

  • Walker, John. National Gallery of Art, Washington. New York, 1956: 22, color repro.

1959

  • Paintings and Sculpture from the Samuel H. Kress Collection. National Gallery of Art, Washington, 1959: 87, repro.

1961

  • Walker, John, Guy Emerson, and Charles Seymour. Art Treasures for America: An Anthology of Paintings & Sculpture in the Samuel H. Kress Collection. London, 1961: 111, color repro. pl. 101, repro. pl. 102.

1962

  • Cairns, Huntington, and John Walker, eds. Treasures from the National Gallery of Art. New York, 1962: 28, color repro.

1963

  • Walker, John. _National Gallery of Art, Washington, D.C. New York, 1963 (reprinted 1964 in French, German, and Spanish): 154, repro.

1965

  • Summary Catalogue of European Paintings and Sculpture. National Gallery of Art, Washington, 1965: 124.

1966

  • Cairns, Huntington, and John Walker, eds. A Pageant of Painting from the National Gallery of Art. 2 vols. New York, 1966: 1:146, color repro.

1968

  • National Gallery of Art. European Paintings and Sculpture, Illustrations. Washington, 1968: 110, repro.

  • Shapley, Fern Rusk. Paintings from the Samuel H. Kress Collection: Italian Schools, XV-XVI Century. London, 1968: 144-145, fig. 350-351.

  • Berenson, Bernard. Italian Pictures of the Renaissance. Central Italian and North Italian Schools. 3 vols. London, 1968: 1:409.

1975

  • European Paintings: An Illustrated Summary Catalogue. National Gallery of Art, Washington, 1975: 330, repro.

1979

  • Shapley, Fern Rusk. Catalogue of the Italian Paintings. 2 vols. National Gallery of Art, Washington, 1979: 1:433-434; 2:pl. 314.

  • Carli, Enzo. Il Sodoma. Vercelli, 1979: 51, 52, fig. 64.

1984

  • Walker, John. National Gallery of Art, Washington. Rev. ed. New York, 1984: 216, no. 265, color repro.

1985

  • European Paintings: An Illustrated Catalogue. National Gallery of Art, Washington, 1985: 378, repro.

1990

  • Bagnoli, Alessandro, Roberto Bartalani, and Michele Maccherini, eds. Domenico Beccafumi e il suo tempo. Exh. cat. Chiesa di Sant’Agostino, Pinacoteca Nazionale, Duomo, Oratorio di San Bernardino, Spedale di Santa Maria della Scala, and Palazzo Bindi Sergardi, Siena, 1990: 352, fig. 2.

1993

  • Manca, Joseph. "What is Ferrarese about Bellini's Feast of the Gods?" Studies in the History of Art 45 (1993): 308-309, repro. no. 7.

1996

  • Bartalani, Roberto. Le occasioni del Sodoma. Dalla Milano di Leonardo alla Roma di Raffaello. Rome, 1996: 119-120, fig. 155.

2004

  • Danziger, Elon. "The Cook Collection: Its Founder and Its Inheritors." The Burlington Magazine 146, no. 1216 (July 2004): 447.

2014

  • Bartalani, Roberto. “Sulla camera di Alessandro e Rossane alla Farnesina e sui soggiorni romani del Sodoma (con una nota su Girolamo Genga a Roma e le sue relazioni con I Chigi).” Prospettiva 153/154 (January – April 2014): 46, 48, fig. 13.

2023

  • Kondziella, Martha. Sodoma: Die Tafel- und Leinwanbilder. Merzhausen, 2023: 38, 227, 257-261, 380-381, 382, cat. 31, fig. 17.

Wikidata ID

Q20175523

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