Saint George and the Princess

Pisanello painted this fresco high on the arch of a family chapel in the church of Sant'Anastasia in Verona, around 1435, for the Pellegrini. It is one of the last great flowers of International Gothic, the courtly style that ran through Europe's princely courts, and it shows Saint George taking his leave of the princess before he rides off to fight the dragon. Pisanello lavished the detail on what later ages would call the wrong things: the princess's brocade gown and swept-back hair, the horses seen from behind, the knight's polished armour. Water leaking from the roof ruined the left side, where the dragon was, and in the 19th century what survived was cut from the wall, which stripped away the gold and silver that once glinted across it.