''Saint George and the Dragon'' is a painting by

Paolo Uccello Paolo Uccello ( , ; 1397 – 10 December 1475), born Paolo di Dono, was an Italians, Italian (Florentine) Florentine painting, painter and mathematician who was notable for his pioneering work on visual Perspective (graphical), perspective in art. ...

dating from around 1470. It is on display in the

National Gallery, London The National Gallery is an art museum in Trafalgar Square in the City of Westminster, in Central London, England. Founded in 1824, it houses a collection of over 2,300 paintings dating from the mid-13th century to 1900. The current Director o ...

United Kingdom The United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland, commonly known as the United Kingdom (UK) or Britain, is a country in Europe, off the north-western coast of the continental mainland. It comprises England, Scotland, Wales and North ...

. It was formerly housed in the Palais Lanckoroński in Vienna, belonging to Count

Karol Lanckoroński Count Karol Lanckoroński () (born 4 November 1848 in Vienna; died 15 July 1933 in Vienna) was a Polish writer, art collector, patron, historian, traveler, and vice-president of the Society for Cultural Protection in his native Galicia. He was o ...

and sold by his son and heir Anton in 1959 through Mr. Farago. The first mention of it being there is 1898. Gothicizing tendencies in Paolo Uccello's art are nowhere more apparent than in this painting. It shows a scene from the famous story of

Saint George and the Dragon In a legend, Saint Georgea soldier venerated in Christianitydefeats a dragon. The story goes that the dragon originally extorted tribute from villagers. When they ran out of livestock and trinkets for the dragon, they started giving up a human tr ...

. On the right, George is spearing the beast, and on the left, the princess is using her belt as a leash to take the dragon up to the town. The eye in the storm gathering on the right of Saint George is lined up with his spear showing there has been divine intervention. An earlier less dramatic version of the same subject by the Italian artist is in the Musée Jacquemart-André, Paris. The painting is used as the basis for the

U. A. Fanthorpe Ursula Askham Fanthorpe, Commander of the British Empire, CBE, Royal Society of Literature, FRSL (22 July 1929 – 28 April 2009) was an English poet, who published as U. A. Fanthorpe. Her poetry comments mainly on social issues. Life and work ...

poem, ''Not My Best Side'', and may have served as inspiration for

Sir John Tenniel Sir John Tenniel (; 28 February 182025 February 1914)Johnson, Lewis (2003), "Tenniel, John", ''Grove Art Online, Oxford Art Online'', Oxford University Press. Web. Retrieved 12 December 2016. was an English illustrator, graphic humorist and poli ...

's illustration of the

Jabberwock "Jabberwocky" is a nonsense poem written by Lewis Carroll about the killing of a creature named "the Jabberwock". It was included in his 1871 novel ''Through the Looking-Glass'', the sequel to ''Alice's Adventures in Wonderland'' (1865). The bo ...

in ''

Through the Looking-Glass, and What Alice Found There ''Through the Looking-Glass, and What Alice Found There'' (also known as ''Alice Through the Looking-Glass'' or simply ''Through the Looking-Glass'') is a novel published on 27 December 1871 (though indicated as 1872) by Lewis Carroll and the ...

''.Gardner, Martin (1999) ''The Annotated Alice: The Definitive Edition''. W. W. Norton & Co.

References

1470 paintings Paintings by Paolo Uccello Collections of the National Gallery, London Religious paintings Horses in art Paintings of dragons Saint George and the Dragon {{15C-painting-stub