The Metropolitan Museum of Art

Lion

Date:: after 1200
Geography:: Made in San Pedro de Arlanza, Castile-León
Culture:: Spanish
Medium:: Fresco, mounted on canvas
Dimensions:: Overall: 10 ft. 11 in. x 11 ft. (332.7 x 335.3 cm) Overall (top panel): 83 x 132 in. (210.8 x 335.3 cm) Overall (lower panel): 48 x 132 in. (121.9 x 335.3 cm)
Classification:: Paintings
Credit Line:: The Cloisters Collection, 1931
Accession Number:: 31.38.1a, b

This artwork is currently on display in Gallery 001

Description

This wall painting and its companion, which depicts a dragon, are closely related to a cycle of frescoes at Sigena (Huesca), thought to be by an English painter from Winchester. Notwithstanding attempts to find symbolic significance in these beasts, contemporary texts state that "images of animal, birds, serpents and other things are for adornment and beauty only."
Provenance

From a room above the chapter house of the monastery of San Pedro de Arlanza, near Hortigüela, Burgos, Spain (sold by the government in the nineteenth century)

Private Collection ; [ Sr. Colominas , Barcelona (sold 1931)]
See also
What
Fragments (15,188)

Paintings (12,464)

Canvas (4,596)

Frescoes (149)
Where
Europe (148,590)

Spain (3,744)

Castilla y León (34)
When
A.D. 1000-1400 (7,084)
In the Museum
The Cloisters (2,300)
Heilbrunn Timeline of Art History
Animals in Medieval Art

Iberian Peninsula, 1000–1400 A.D.