St. George and the Dragon

According to legend, a dragon once terrorized the population of Silene, a city in Lybia. It would relent only in exchange for daily human sacrifices. The city thus devised a lottery to determine the sacrificial victims. Eventually, to the horror of Silene’s king, his own daughter, Princess Cleodolinda, was selected. Moments before her sacrifice, Saint George, a Christian soldier in the Roman army, appeared on horseback and killed the dragon. The dramatic event prompted the entire city to convert to Christianity. This engraving captures the climactic moment of the battle, just as Saint George draws his sword to finish off the monster. The horizontal composition, framed around the interlocking forms of the leaping horse and the writhing dragon, is both striking and efficient. Although the print is unsigned, it can be reliably attributed on stylistic grounds to Master AG, who may have been an apprentice of Martin Schongauer’s.