St George and the Dragon

In the 1420s there was no country called Slovakia. Its towns and valleys formed the northern part of the Kingdom of Hungary, so it fits that the museum's records say simply that this panel came from Hungary. The Belvedere gives it to an unknown Slovak painter of around 1420 to 1430. It was bought in 1912 at the Dorotheum, the Vienna auction house, for the state gallery that is now the Belvedere. The painter left out almost everything the legend offers, the princess, the town, even the horse. George stands on foot on the dragon's back and drives a long thin lance down into its open jaws. He wears a white tunic with a red cross over his armour, and his cloak flares out on both sides. The beast's tail curls up behind him, and its ribbed wings spread across the ground.