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Images related to Copley's "Watson and the Shark": in the National Gallery of Art collection

Albrecht Dürer, Saint Michael Fighting the Dragon, probably c. 1496/1498 (published 1511), woodcut, Rosenwald Collection, 1980.45.456.rr
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Giulio Romano, Saint Michael, c. 1527/1528, pen and brown ink, Ailsa Mellon Bruce Fund, 1973.5.1
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Israhel van Meckenem, Saint George and the Dragon, c. 1465/1470, engraving on laid paper, Gift of the 50th Anniversary Gift Committee, 1991.97.1
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A man wearing armor, sitting astride a cream-white horse, drives a long lance down at a lizard-like dragon as a woman kneels with her hands in prayer in the landscape beyond in this vertical painting. Both people have pale skin and thin, gold halos floating above their heads. At the center of the composition, the man faces our left in profile as he looks down at the creature. The man has a straight nose and honey-brown hair under his gold-trimmed, pewter-gray helmet. Armor covers his entire body, and a celestial-blue cape billows behind him from where it fastens around his neck. A narrow, indigo-blue and gold band is tied around his left calf, and is inscribed with the word “HONI.” A black sword hangs from his left side. The horse is white with a silvery-white mane and tail. It rears on its hind legs as it turns its head to look at us with hazel-brown eyes. The horse wears a blue saddle and bridle, the same color as the man’s cape, trimmed with gold. A strap around the horse’s neck is painted in gold with the name, “RAPHELLO.” The rider thrusts his foot into the stirrup we can see as he plunges a lance down at the dragon under the horse’s front feet. The dragon has tawny brown skin with a mint green, dog-like head. It grips the earth with clawed feet as at pushes at the lance with one front foot. It twists its long, snake-like neck to look at the man with dark eyes. The dragon opens its pointed snout to show its teeth, and bat-like wings splay out. A tall outcropping over a cave rises along the left edge of the composition, behind the dragon. In a field a little farther back, to our right, the woman kneels with her body angled to our left. She tilts her head away from us and gazes past the man and horse. She has a straight nose, pale pink, bow-shaped lips, and her blond hair is pulled back in a bun. She wears a ruby-red dress and a sheer white wrap around her shoulders and across her arms. Around the woman, straw-yellow hills with bands of pine-green trees roll into the distance. Two terracotta-orange towers rise from a row of trees along the horizon. A few taller trees are outlined against the baby-blue sky, which lightens toward the horizon.
Raphael, Saint George and the Dragon, c. 1506, oil on panel, Andrew W. Mellon Collection, 1937.1.26
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A man wearing armor and riding a rearing gray horse pins a winged, reptile-like dragon to the ground using a long lance at the center of this vertical painting. A woman kneels beyond the man and dragon to our left, and mountains and a city lining a body of water stretch into the deep distance. The man’s gleaming silver armor covers his whole body except his pale peach face, his brown hair, and his feet. Two long strips of burgundy-red material unfurl from under his arms to flutter behind him like banners. A white shield with a red cross is propped on his upper left arm, and he holds the lance with his right hand high over his head. The lance spans nearly the whole composition, creating a diagonal from near the top edge to the lower right corner, where it almost pierces the back of the dragon’s neck. The olive-green dragon has a royal-blue stripe down its back and tail, and it opens its beak-like mouth and sticks out its long, forked tongue. Skulls and bones are scattered on the ground around the dragon. The woman to our left has pale pink skin and her blond hair is bound up and covered with a translucent veil. Her long, high-necked dress is patterned with blue and gold, and red fringe or fabric drapes down from the underside of the sleeves. Buildings cluster at the top of a projecting ridge above the woman in the background, and more buildings line the edge of a body of water below. Ships with unfurled sails pass by blue mountains in the distance. The horizon line comes three-quarters of the way up the panel and the blue sky is dotted with clouds.
Rogier van der Weyden, Saint George and the Dragon, c. 1432/1435, oil on panel, Ailsa Mellon Bruce Fund, 1966.1.1
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Close to us, six light-skinned men crowd into two small wooden boats that together span the width of this horizontal painting. The bow of the boat to our left overlaps the stern of the boat to our right. In the stern of the boat to our left, along the left edge of the canvas, a man, Jesus sits in profile facing our right. A marine-blue garment drapes around his waist and legs over a rose-pink tunic, and three rays of gold light emanate from the top, front, and back of his head. He raises his left hand toward the other two men in his boat. A bearded, balding man wearing marigold orange kneels with his hands pressed together in prayer in front of Jesus. To our right, at the bow of the boat and near the center of the composition, a younger bearded man with flowing hair steps toward Jesus, his arms outstretched. His pink tunic and emerald-green cape billow around him. Two muscular, bare-chested men bend over the side of the boat to our right, pulling in a fishing net. A balding man with a white beard sits in the bow of that boat, his body facing our left. He looks over his left shoulder toward the water and the half-submerged oar he holds. Blue water stretches into the distance between a distant mountain to our left and the meandering shoreline to our right. The horizon where the blue sky meets the water is close to the top edge of the composition.
Jacopo Bassano, The Miraculous Draught of Fishes, 1545, oil on canvas, Patrons' Permanent Fund, 1997.21.1
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