St George and the Dragon

Saint George is usually shown on horseback, driving a lance into the dragon. Here he fights on foot. He stands over the beast in golden plate armour, the metal worked into pointed, ridged plates, and swings a battle-axe above his head. The dragon, green-headed with red wings, hooks its claws into his breastplate and drags its long tail across the pale floor. It is no antique costume. The pointed plates follow the fashion of the 1480s, when the workshops of Innsbruck and Augsburg were making armour for the princes of the day. Behind the pair a dark red ground is scattered with small gold stars. The Belvedere dates the panel to around 1490 and names Simon von Taisten, a painter from the Puster valley, with a question mark after his name. It hangs in the Palace Stables of the Lower Belvedere.