Saint George and the Dragon

Bernat Martorell · 1434–35

Medium

Tempera on panel

Original size

155.6 × 98.1 cm (61 1/4 × 38 5/8 in.)

Currently held

Art Institute of Chicago

Movement

Italian Renaissance

Bernat Martorell's *Saint George and the Dragon* is one of the most visually arresting works of the International Gothic period — a scene of violent grace rendered in jewel-like colour against a fractured, dreamlike landscape. Martorell was the leading painter in fifteenth-century Catalonia, and this altarpiece panel shows why. Working in tempera on panel, he layered translucent pigments with extraordinary precision, building up flesh tones, armour, and fabric with a delicacy that no reproductive print fully conveys. The dragon coils with genuine menace, the princess stands composed in her finery, and George's horse rears against a gold-flecked sky — all held together by Martorell's instinct for controlled drama. His figures inhabit a world that is both earthly and transcendent, grounded in Catalan devotional tradition while reaching toward the refined elegance circulating across Europe at the time. For decades, the artist behind this work was known to scholars only as the "Master of Saint George" — the painting itself was the sole fixed point around which his identity was eventually reconstructed from archival documents. The hand-painted oil reproduction captures the painting's layered luminosity and compositional tension, offering a faithful rendering of a work that has spent nearly six centuries earning its reputation.