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Tom Gurney BSc (Hons) is an art history expert with over 20 years experience
Page Created: 30 August 2026 / Page Updated: November 6, 2026
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Saint George and the Dragon: Introduction

Gustave Moreau’s Saint George and the Dragon compresses rescue, combat and prayer into one upright image. In the picture, a pale horse surges above a coiling dragon as the young saint drives a red lance downwards. High on the rocks, the threatened princess watches with joined hands; behind her, a slender castle rises into the sky. The subject is medieval legend, but the painting’s visual ancestry ranges across Renaissance art, Byzantine icons, Late Gothic detail, and Indian and Persian miniatures. Moreau developed the design over roughly two decades before completing this 1889–90 commission.

At a Glance

  • ArtistGustave Moreau
  • Date1889–90
  • MediumOil on canvas
  • Dimensions141 × 96.5 cm
  • CollectionNational Gallery, London; inventory NG6436
  • DevelopmentRelated to a circa-1869 watercolour, a possible circa-1870 studio plan, X-ray evidence and five surviving preparatory drawings

Gustave Moreau in context

Contents

  1. Introduction
  2. The Exact National Gallery Painting
  3. The White Horse and Youthful Saint
  4. Lance, Dragon and the Held Moment
  5. The Princess, Castle and Craggy World
  6. The Legend and Moreau’s Choice
  7. Raphael, Carpaccio and Italian Memory
  8. Byzantine Icons, Late Gothic Detail and Miniatures
  9. Flattened Space and a Heraldic Design
  10. A Design Developed over Two Decades

The National Gallery records Saint George and the Dragon as a signed oil on canvas measuring 141 by 96.5 centimetres. Its inventory number is NG6436. Louis Mante commissioned the work in 1889, and Moreau completed it in 1890; the Gallery therefore gives the date as 1889–90.[1] This identity separates the London canvas from earlier watercolours and drawings that preserve stages of the design.

Moreau made the painting late in his career, after election to the Académie des Beaux-Arts but before he began teaching at the École des Beaux-Arts in 1892.[2] It nonetheless carries decisions rooted in his Italian journey of 1857–59 and perhaps in planning from around 1870. Calling it simply a late invention would miss that long memory. Calling it merely an enlarged early idea would overlook what changed when a private buyer commissioned the final oil.

The White Horse and Youthful Saint

On visual inspection, the horse is the painting’s largest area of light. Its body rises diagonally from lower left towards upper right, and one front leg lifts sharply above the dragon. The other bends close to the creature’s head. Moreau does not show a rider charging from a distance; horse, saint and monster are compressed into a narrow foreground where their bodies overlap.

The white horse is richly equipped. A broad ornamental band crosses its chest, jewelled blue and red fittings punctuate the bridle, and a circular ornament lies near the base of the neck. These trappings slow the reading of an animal in motion. Their controlled pattern makes the horse ceremonial as well as forceful. The eye alternates between the raised leg, alert face and measured bands of decoration.

Saint George leans slightly forward in dark armour. Long brown hair falls beside his face, while a gold disc sits behind his head. The National Gallery draws attention to his slender, youthful and androgynous appearance, which differs from the image of a heavily mature warrior.[1] In the picture, the bowed head and calm profile reduce any sense of rage. His pose suggests concentration: one hand manages the reins while the other directs the lance.

A pale rose cloak billows behind the saint and descends in a red-lined fold beside the horse. Visually, that fabric prevents the black armour from disappearing into the shadowed cliff. It also echoes the long downward stroke of the weapon. Moreau balances several opposed qualities—dark metal and soft cloth, a rearing animal and a composed rider, bodily action and a halo associated with sanctity.

Lance, Dragon and the Held Moment

Visually, the red lance cuts the composition on a steep diagonal. Its tip reaches the dragon at the open mouth, where red marks make the wound visible. The dragon’s upper body twists back below the horse, one claw lifted, while a long green tail coils across the lower right corner. Wings and a dark, bristling torso enlarge the creature without giving it the same vertical command as the rider.

This is not a wide battlefield. The adversaries have almost no room between them. On visual evidence, the horse’s raised foreleg, the lance and the dragon’s lifted claw form a tight knot of possible movement. Yet the image feels suspended. The lance has struck, but neither creature has fallen; the saint remains poised rather than visibly straining. Like the confrontations in Oedipus and the Sphinx and Hercules and the Lernaean Hydra, the decisive interval becomes more important than a sequence of blows.

The monster is materially close to the lower edge and colouristically close to the earth. Its greens, browns and blacks blend with plants, rock and water. By contrast, horse, cloak and halo establish the saint’s brighter zone. This contrast makes an interpretation of elevation and baseness visually plausible, but it does not by itself prove an allegory. The stronger symbolic proposal belongs to the National Gallery and should be identified as such.

The Princess, Castle and Craggy World

In the image, the princess appears above the combat on the right, much smaller than saint or horse. She kneels or sits on a high rock, her hands together in prayer. A jewel-like crown and patterned robe distinguish her from the darker land. She does not flee, and George does not look towards her. Their separation keeps rescue from becoming a romantic meeting.

Behind the princess stands a narrow domed castle, placed against the sky as though it grows from the mountain. The National Gallery uses the historical description “‘Moorish’ castle” and compares the patterned cloak to a Middle Eastern carpet.[1] Those are specific observations in the museum’s source account, not grounds for treating the setting as an accurate view of one place.

Tall crags close the scene on both sides. The left mass is dark and abrupt; the rocks behind the princess recede through blue-green and brown. The Gallery relates these imaginary formations to Leonardo da Vinci, particularly The Virgin of the Rocks.[1] Moreau’s landscape functions less as navigable terrain than as a vertical frame. Its gaps reveal the sky, but its walls press saint, horse, dragon and princess into a compact emblem.

The Legend and Moreau’s Choice

In the familiar Christian legend, a dragon demands human sacrifices from a community. When a princess is selected as the next victim, Saint George kills the creature and saves her.[1] The story offers several moments a painter might choose: the condemned woman approaching the monster, the saint arriving, the physical struggle, the killing stroke, or the rescued community after victory.

Moreau chose the combat while the princess prays above it. The saint is already engaged, but the outcome has not been fully shown. That decision lets rescue and spiritual intercession occur simultaneously. The crown identifies the threatened woman’s status, the halo identifies the warrior as a saint, and the dragon supplies the legend’s danger. A viewer can read the episode without a crowded narrative sequence.

The composition also moves beyond literal storytelling. Moreau was committed to religious and mythological subjects at a time when Naturalism had become increasingly prominent in French art.[2] Here a legendary deed becomes an opposition between still concentration and animal violence. That transformation is visual before it is doctrinal: outline, height, colour and spacing make the saint’s action look like disciplined purpose rather than uncontrolled aggression.

Raphael, Carpaccio and Italian Memory

The National Gallery identifies a small Saint George by Raphael in the Louvre as a compositional source. Raphael’s example contributed the white horse and the armoured rider with helmet and flying cape.[1] Moreau did not copy the earlier painting as a complete arrangement. He enlarged the vertical format, altered the relationship between horse and monster, moved the princess to a high ledge and surrounded the combat with an imagined landscape.

Vittore Carpaccio supplied another kind of precedent. During his stay in Venice, Moreau closely studied and copied Carpaccio’s narrative paintings in the Scuola di San Giorgio degli Schiavoni, including the cycle devoted to Saint George.[3][4] Those works offered an extended account of the legend rather than Raphael’s compact mounted figure. Moreau could therefore draw upon both a single iconic encounter and a larger tradition of storytelling.

The Italian trip was an organised programme of copying, figure study and comparison, not a brief tour. Moreau examined Renaissance and pre-Renaissance art as well as ancient material, building a working archive for later use.[3] Saint George and the Dragon shows how long such study could remain active. More than thirty years after Venice, Carpaccio still mattered to a newly commissioned oil.

This does not make the painting a pastiche. Moreau’s art repeatedly combined recognisable models until their former functions changed. The Musée Gustave Moreau describes his practice as bringing diverse references into highly individual creations and notes how drawings, prints, photographs and museum study fed that process.[3] The London painting makes the principle unusually traceable because the National Gallery names several of its visual lineages.

Byzantine Icons, Late Gothic Detail and Miniatures

The painting’s gold halo, firm contour and reduced perspectival depth connect it to Byzantine, or Eastern Christian, icon painting in the National Gallery’s account. Icons frequently represent Saint George defeating the dragon, so the association reinforces both his sanctity and the recognisability of the subject.[1] The image is not itself a Byzantine icon. It adapts features of that tradition within a nineteenth-century oil made for a French collector.

The Gallery also relates the horse’s ornamental equipment, George’s halo and the princess’s crown to the detailed Late Gothic painting of Carlo Crivelli. That evidence helps explain why decoration is not confined to a backdrop. Jewels and metalwork distinguish the sacred actors and give small accents structural weight.

Indian and Persian miniatures form another documented part of Moreau’s visual field. The National Gallery connects the princess’s patterned clothing and the picture’s precious detail to his awareness of those works.[1] The Musée Gustave Moreau records that he consulted Indian and Persian miniature collections in the Bibliothèque Nationale.[3] These should be named as separate traditions, not collapsed into a vague “Eastern” influence or confused with Byzantine art.

The result is an assembly, not a hierarchy in which one source explains everything. Raphael helps clarify the horse and mounted saint; Carpaccio belongs to the legend’s Venetian pictorial history; icon painting contributes outline, halo and spiritual authority; Late Gothic art informs ornament; Indian and Persian miniatures offer further models of patterned precision. Moreau’s symbolism, mythology and religion emerge through the new relationships he creates among them.

Flattened Space and a Heraldic Design

The National Gallery calls the design heraldic and emphasises outline over deep perspective.[1] That description fits the way the principal bodies stack vertically. Dragon, horse, rider, halo, princess and castle rise in successive zones, while the landscape supplies only limited recession. The figures read almost like signs set against rock rather than occupants of a continuous open world.

Flattening strengthens the legend. The lance remains legible from George’s hand to the dragon; the halo forms a complete disc; the horse is immediately white; the princess is isolated high against the crag. Each element declares its role. At the same time, overlapping bodies create enough uncertainty to prevent the design from becoming static decoration. The horse’s legs and the dragon’s coils compete for the lower space.

The Gallery proposes that Moreau’s youthful warrior represents spiritual purity and may be overcoming crude animal appetite as he kills the dragon.[1] This is a useful, explicitly attributed interpretation. The contrast between haloed saint and earthbound monster supports it, as do the rider’s restraint and the creature’s open jaws. But “may” matters. The canvas still represents the rescue legend, and its symbols need not be reduced to a universal contest between spirit and flesh.

A Design Developed over Two Decades

The apparent unity of the finished picture emerged from a long process. A watercolour of the same subject in a private Stuttgart collection dates from about 1869. X-ray images show that the London painting’s early state relates to that sheet. The design may also appear in a plan of Moreau’s studio perhaps drawn around 1870, suggesting that some form of the composition remained present long before the Mante commission.[1]

Five preparatory drawings for the painting survive in the Musée Gustave Moreau.[1] Together with the X-ray and watercolour, they show revision across media rather than a single preliminary sketch mechanically enlarged. The relation is especially important because Moreau often used drawing, tracing and transfer to stabilise compositions while continuing to alter them. The drawings and watercolours guide explains those practices across his career.

Louis Mante’s 1889 commission gave the old idea a defined destination. Moreau completed the oil in 1890 and Mante bought it directly for 9,000 francs. Commission and prior development are not competing explanations. A design preserved from around 1869 could be reworked for a particular patron twenty years later, with the final dimensions, surface and details belonging to the late object.

This timeline also cautions against assigning every feature one date. The basic mounted combat may have deep roots, while the exact crown, trappings, landscape or paint handling could reflect later decisions. X-ray research can establish relationships beneath the visible surface, but it does not turn every revision into a fully dated step. The evidence supports duration and reworking; it does not support a complete year-by-year reconstruction.

Mante was a Marseille shipowner and collector. After his direct purchase from Moreau, the painting moved through several private collections. The National Gallery acquired it in 1976 from the London dealer Arthur Tooth and Sons Ltd.[1] Its current collection page lists it in the Main Collection under NG6436 and marks it as not on display. That status can change, so visitors should consult the record before travelling.

The painting’s London home creates a productive comparison with the earlier art that informed it, including Raphael’s work in the Louvre and Carpaccio’s Venetian cycle. It also preserves an unusually well-researched example of Moreau’s late painting practice: an old conception renewed through commission, composite source study and sustained revision.

Researched works directory

This searchable evidence census was assembled from public museum records and a reproducible Wikidata snapshot. It is not a catalogue raisonné, a claim to complete oeuvre coverage, or a substitute for Pierre-Louis Mathieu's printed catalogue, which was not consulted for this directory.

325 artworks

NameDateMedium
Abstract Study1850Painting
Abstract Study1875Painting
Abstract Study1890Painting
Academic Study of a Man1847Painting
Achilles the Centaur Chiron1859Painting
Andromeda1867Painting
AndromedaDate unknownPainting
Angels Following the Magi1860Painting
Angels following the Three Magi1898Painting
Angels Throwing Flowers on the Vatican1850Painting
Aphrodite, 1871Date unknownPainting
Apollo and Daphne1852Painting
Apollo and The Nine Muses1856Painting
Apollo and the Satyrs1850Painting
Apollo Victorious over Python1885Painting
Apollon and Marsyas1858Painting
Ariadne and Theseus1875Painting
Arion1891Painting
Athenians being Delivered to the Minotaur in the Cretan Labyrinth1855Painting
Autumn1885Painting
Bacchanal1850Painting
Bacchus on the Panther -cart.Date unknownPainting
Bathsheba1875Painting
Beheading of John the Baptist1872Painting
Bertrand and Raton1879Painting
Binding of Isaac1850Painting
Birth of Venus1870Painting
Briseis Departure1859Painting
centaurDate unknownPainting
Centaurs1850Painting
Chimera1850Painting
Chimeras1875Painting
Christ and the Two Thieves1870Painting
Christ at Gethsemane1850Painting
Christ at Gethsemane1875Painting
Christ at Lake Tiberias1850Painting
Christ at the Column1850Painting
Christ Blessing Hist Mother1850Painting
Christ Reliever1850Painting
Circe1850Painting
Cleopatra1850Painting
Cleopatra1887Painting
Danaé1858Painting
Darius, Fleeing after the battle of Arbela, Stops, Exhausted, to Drink from a Pond1853Painting
Darius Flight1850Painting
Dead Orpheus1850Painting
Dead Orpheus1890Painting
Dead Poet Carried by a Centaur1890Painting
Death Giving Laurels to the Winner of the Tournament1859Painting
Death of a Young Crusader1870Painting
Death of Moses1850Painting
Death of Sapho1850Painting
Death of Sapho1872Painting
Debauchery1850Painting
Dejanira (Autumn)1872Painting
Delilah1850Painting
Delilah1890Painting
Delilah1896Painting
Descent from the Cross1850Painting
Diana bathing1900Painting
Diomede devoured by his horses1865Painting
Diomedes Devoured by His Horses1865Painting
Diomedes Devoured by His Own Horses1870Painting
Œdipus the Wayfarer1888Painting
Draft for Sapho1850Painting
Eleonora Gonzaga, Duchess of Urbino1858Painting
Endymion1850Painting
Erigone1865Painting
Eve1850Painting
Eve1875Painting
Fairy in a Cave1850Painting
Fairy with Griffins1870Painting
Fairy with Griffins1876Painting
Fée aux griffons1876Drawing
Femme et licorne1890Painting
Francesco Maria della Rovere, Duke of Urbino1858Painting
Françoise de Rimini1850Painting
Galateac. 1880Painting
Galathea1896Painting
GalatheaDate unknownPainting
Ganymede1886Painting
Gardian Angel of the City1850Painting
Genius of Evil1850Painting
Genius of Evil1875Painting
Golgotha1870Painting
Hamlet1850Painting
Hamlet Giving Poison to the King1850Painting
Helen1850Painting
Helen1880Painting
Helen at the Scaean Gate1888Painting
Helen Glorified1893Painting
Helen on the Walls of Troy1850Painting
Helen on the Walls of Troy1875Painting
HeleneDate unknownPainting
Hercule et les oiseaux du lac de StymphaleDate unknownPainting
Hercules and Omphale1856Painting
Hercules and the Ceryneian Hind1871Painting
Hercules and the Daughters of Thespius1850Painting
Hercules and the Lernaean Hydra1875–1876Painting
Hercules and the Nemean Lion1850Painting
Hercules and the Stymphalian Birds1872Painting
Hercules and Thespius Daughters1850Painting
Hercules at Lake Stymphalia1875Painting
Hercules between Vice and Virtue1850Painting
Hesiod and the Muse1870Painting
Hesiod and the Muse1875Painting
Hesiod and the Muse1891Painting
Hesiod and the Muses1860Painting
Hesiod and the Muses1882Painting
Hésiode enfant1860Painting
Horse Rider1854Painting
Horse Rider1870Painting
Horse Rider and Amazon1869Painting
Horse Riders and Horses1854Painting
Indian Women Poets1890Painting
Interior, Draft1850Painting
Jacob and the Angel1876Painting
Jacob and the Angel1878Painting
Jacob et l'Ange1878Painting
Jason1865Painting
Jason et Éros1891Painting
Judith1850Painting
Jupiter and Semele1889–1895Painting
King Canute and His Courtesans1850Painting
King David1878Painting
L'enlèvement d'Europe1872Painting
La FéeDate unknownPainting
La mort de Sapho1872Painting
La mort de Sapho1876Painting
La Villa BorghèseDate unknownPainting
Landscape1850Painting
Landscape, Draft1850Painting
Landscape (Neighborhood of Étampes)1850Painting
Le Bon Samaritain1865Painting
Le Cantique des cantiques1853Painting
Le Christ et Madeleine (Noli me Tangere)1889Painting
Le Grand Pan contemple les Sphères Célestes1897Drawing
Le Poète et la Sirène1893Painting
Le Soir1887Painting
Le Sphinx1886Painting
Leda1846Painting
Leda1850Painting
Leda1870Painting
Les Chimères1884Painting
Les Plaintes du poète1882Painting
Life of Humanity1875Painting
Life of Humanity1886Painting
Life of Humanity: Salvator Mundi1886Painting
Life of Humanity: The Golden Age, Adam - Evening - Sleep1879Painting
Life of Humanity: The Golden Age, Adam - Morning - Prayer1879Painting
Life of Humanity: The Golden Age, Adam - Noon - Extasy1879Painting
Life of Humanity: The Iron Age, Cain - Evening - Death1879Painting
Life of Humanity: The Iron Age, Cain - Morning - Work1879Painting
Life of Humanity: The Iron Age, Cain - Noon - Rest1879Painting
Life of Humanity: The Silver Age, Hesiod and Orpheus, Hesiod - Evening - Tears1879Painting
Life of Humanity: The Silver Age, Hesiod and Orpheus, Hesiod - Morning - Inspiration1879Painting
Life of Humanity: The Silver Age, Hesiod and Orpheus, Orpheus - Noon - Song1879Painting
Love Victorious over Death1850Painting
Lucretia and Tarquin1850Painting
Magdalene on Golgotha1850Painting
Magdalene on Golgotha1875Painting
Magdalene on Golgotha1880Painting
Magnolia1864Painting
Martyrdrom1850Painting
Messalina1850Painting
Messalina1874Painting
Messaline1874Painting
Mort de Sapho1900Painting
Moses Exposed1875Painting
Moses Exposed on the Nile1875Painting
Moses, in Sight of the Promised Land, Takes His Sandals Off1854Painting
Moses Rescued from the Nile1893Painting
Mystic Flower1890Painting
Narcissus1850Painting
Narcissus1885Painting
Narcissus1890Painting
Noces d’Alexandre et de RoxaneDate unknownDrawing
Nude Study1850Painting
Nyx, Night Goddess1880Painting
Oedipus and the Sphinx1864Painting
Orestes1850Painting
Orestes1875Painting
Orestes and the Erinyes1875Painting
Orphés1865Painting
Orpheus1865Painting
Orpheus Head1850Painting
Orpheus on Eurydice's Tomb1890Painting
Pasiphaë1850Painting
Pasiphaë1880Painting
Pasiphaë, Grisaille1850Painting
Pauline Moreau as the Virgin1848Painting
Perseus and Andromeda1870Painting
Persian Poet1875Painting
Petrarch After the Triumph1850Painting
Phaéton1878Painting
Phoebus and Boreas1879Painting
Pietà1867Painting
Pietà1875Painting
Pietà1876Painting
PietàDate unknownPainting
Pittacus the Tyrant in War Costume1883Drawing
Polyphemus1880Painting
Poney1870Painting
Portrait of Gustave Moreau by Himself1850Painting
Portrait of Gustave Moreau by Himself1890Painting
Postman and Horses1854Painting
Prometheus1868Painting
Prometheus1869Painting
Prometheus Thunderstruck1870Painting
Prometheus, Variant1870Painting
Rape of Deianira1850Painting
Rape of Deianira1872Painting
Return of the Argonauts1890Painting
Ruines de Rome : le Colisée vu des jardins de l'Angélicum des dominicains1858Painting
Saint Cecilia and the Angels of Music1850Painting
Saint Francis Kissing a Leper1850Painting
Saint George and the Dragon1889–1890Painting
Saint Jerome1850Painting
Saint Sebastian1850Painting
Saint Sebastian1870Painting
Saint Sebastian and the Angel1876Painting
Saint Sebastian and the Angels1850Painting
Saint Sebastian Succoured1885Painting
Saint Sebastian with Archers1875Painting
Saint-Sébastien et l'ange1876Painting
Saint Sébastien soigné par les saintes femmes1869Painting
Sainte Cecilia1850Painting
Salome1850Painting
Salome1872Painting
Salome1874Painting
Salome at the Prison1873Painting
Salomé au Jardin1878Painting
Salome Dancing1872Painting
Salomé Dancing Before Herod1876Painting
Salome Dancing in front of Herod1876Painting
Salome with the Head of John the Baptist1876Painting
Santa Cecilia (Moreau)Date unknownPainting
Sappho falling into the Abyss1867Painting
Semele1889Painting
Semele, Draft1889Painting
Singing Centaurs1850Painting
Slaves Thrown to the Morays1850Painting
Song of Songs （Cantique des Cantiques）1893Painting
Spanish Conversation1850Painting
Spring1850Painting
St. SebastianDate unknownPainting
Study1850Painting
Study1874Painting
Study1875Painting
Study for Jupiter and Semele1889Painting
Study for Moses Taking Off His Sandals1854Painting
Study for Saint Cecilia1850Painting
Study for Salome1874Painting
Study for The Triumph of Alexander the Great1885Painting
Study from Nature1850Painting
Study of a red ibis1900Painting
Sultan1850Painting
Suzanne et les vieillards1895Painting
swinging girlDate unknownPainting
Tea Rose1850Painting
Temptation1890Painting
Tempting Demon1875Painting
The Angels of Sodome1872Painting
The Apparition1876Drawing
The Argonauts1885Painting
The Bad Rich1850Painting
The calvary1867Painting
The childhood of Sixtus V.1853Painting
The Chimera1867Painting
The chimeraDate unknownPainting
The Chimeras1850Painting
The Crowning with Thorns1846Painting
The Daughters of Thespius1853Painting
The Dead Lyres1897Painting
The Decameron1850Painting
The Disciples in Emmaus1850Painting
The Dream Haunting the Mogul1881Painting
The Entombment1867Painting
The Good Samaritan1850Painting
The Infant Moses1877Painting
The Magi1860Painting
The Martyred Saint Sebastian1869Painting
The Mermaid and the Poet1895Painting
The Muses Leaving Their Father Apollo to Go and Light the World1868Painting
The Parca and the Angel of Death1890Painting
The Parcae1850Painting
The Pieridae1875Painting
The Pieridae1880Painting
The Pietà1867Painting
The Plague in Florence1870Painting
The Poet and the Siren1894Painting
The Prodigal Son1850Painting
The Prodigal Son1890Painting
The Rape of Europe1868Painting
The Rape of Europe1869Painting
The Shulamite1853Painting
The Sirens1850Painting
The Sirens1875Painting
The Sirens1882Painting
The Springs1856Painting
The Suitors1862Painting
The Toilette1887Painting
The Travelling Angels1875Painting
The Travelling Poet1890Painting
The Unicorn1885Painting
The Unicorns1888Painting
The Voices1867Painting
The Wandering Jew1870Painting
The Young Man and Death1856–1865Painting
Tomyris and Cyrus1850Painting
Triumph of Alexander the Great1873Painting
Triumphing Church1870Painting
Tyrtaeus1850Painting
Tyrtaeus Singing While Fighting1860Painting
Un Saint au désert1879Painting
Untitled1866Painting
Venice1850Painting
Venice1885Painting
Venus Rising from the Sea1866Painting
Victim1850Painting
Vue de Florence1858Painting
Walk in a Park1865Painting
Water Fairy1850Painting
Womand and Chimera1875Painting
Young Thracian Woman Holding Orpheus' Head1866Painting

Frequently Asked Questions

When did Gustave Moreau paint Saint George and the Dragon?

The National Gallery dates the finished oil to 1889–90. Louis Mante commissioned it in 1889 and Moreau completed it in 1890. The underlying design is much older, however: it relates to a circa-1869 watercolour and may appear in a studio plan made around 1870.[1]

What story does the painting show?

Saint George confronts a dragon that demands human victims, rescuing a princess selected for sacrifice. Moreau shows the saint striking the monster while the princess prays from a high rock. The combat is underway, but the picture suspends the story before its aftermath.[1]

Which artistic sources did Moreau use?

The National Gallery identifies Raphael’s mounted Saint George, Carpaccio’s Venetian cycle, Byzantine icon painting, Carlo Crivelli’s Late Gothic detail, and Moreau’s knowledge of Indian and Persian miniatures. It also compares the craggy landscape with Leonardo. Each source contributes particular possibilities; none provides a complete template.[1]

What does Saint George and the Dragon mean?

It first depicts the Christian rescue legend. The National Gallery further suggests that Moreau’s youthful saint embodies spiritual purity and may be vanquishing crude animal appetite in the dragon. The halo, calm rider and dark earthbound creature support that reading, but it remains an attributed interpretation rather than a fixed code.[1]

Where is Moreau’s Saint George and the Dragon now?

It belongs to the National Gallery in London, inventory NG6436. The current object record says it is not on display. Check the Gallery’s page before a visit because display and loan status may change.[1]

Discussion

Use this evidence-led guide as a starting point for close looking rather than a final verdict.

Share an observation about Saint George and the Dragon or a source that adds useful context.

Reader Insights

Close Looking

Which detail most changes your reading of Saint George and the Dragon?

Context

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Open Question

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Join the Conversation

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References

  1. National Gallery, London, “Saint George and the Dragon.”, accessed 30 August 2026.
  2. National Gallery, London, “Gustave Moreau (1826–1898).”, accessed 30 August 2026.
  3. Musée Gustave Moreau, “The Art of Gustave Moreau.”, accessed 30 August 2026.
  4. Musée Gustave Moreau, “Gustave Moreau in Italy.”, accessed 30 August 2026.