(Link)
Saint Michael and the Dragon
Spanish (Valencian) Painter
(active in Italy, early 15th century)
Date: ca. 1405
Medium: Tempera on wood, gold ground
Dimensions: 41 3/8 x 40 3/4 in. (105.1 x 103.5 cm)
Credit Line: Rogers Fund, 1912
Accession Number: 12.192

This work was painted in Italy by an unknown artist whose style is indebted to the richness and refinement of Valencian art at the beginning of the fifteenth century. Saint Michael wears a brightly colored brigandine embellished with gold foliate decoration and wields a great sword with almost balletic grace against the seven-headed dragon of the Apocalypse. The idealized beauty of the youthful archangel contrasts with the monstrous, bat-winged creature sprawled at his feet. Their violent and timeless struggle is staged against a finely inscribed gold ground that emphasizes the celestial setting of the battle.

Provenance
William Drury Lowe, Locko Park, Derbyshire (in 1901); [Sulley and Co., London, in 1912, sold for ?1200 to MMA]

This painting originally formed the principal panel of a retable dedicated to the archangel Saint Michael. Initially attributed to the Italian school, it is now generally considered by an unknown Valencian master.

Jean Paul Richter. Catalogue of Pictures at Locko Park. London, 1901, pp. 83–84, no. 203, ill., attributes it to the Florentine painter, Neri di Bicci, and dates it 1453–75; states that it is said to have come from a church in Lucca, Italy.

C. R. Post. Letter. October 12, 1936, is less inclined to see it as Spanish and tends to assign it to the international movement as practiced in Venice or in some other part of Northern Italy.

Harry B. Wehle. The Metropolitan Museum of Art: A Catalogue of Italian, Spanish, and Byzantine Paintings. New York, 1940, pp. 215–16, ill., attributes it to an unknown Valencian painter, first quarter of the 15th century; notes that this picture originally formed the top element in a large retable and that its peak has been lost.

Изображенный доспех явно соответствует доспехам на памятниках Венеции (P0257, Venice, 1380 - идентичная бригандина с застежкой спереди, короткий кольчужный рукав, полунаголенники) и области Veneto (см. P0243, Treviso, 1396 - фестоны на подоле жупона (или бригандины под жупоном) кольчужные полунаголенники, кольчужная привесь наголенника, пояс с отдельными маленькими накладками, короткий кольчужный рукав, пластина бригандины над плечевым сгибом - см. Italy) в этот период (чуть позже уже исчез пояс, удлинился подол накидки) и совершенно непохож на изображения доспеха в Арагоне.