Marshal, Alexander, St. George and the dragon, circa 1630-1682
- Title(s):
- St. George and the dragon.
- Additional Title(s):
- Saint George and the dragon.
- Physical Description:
- 1 painting : watercolor, pen and ink, on paper ; image 204 x 192 mm., on sheet 220 x 199 mm.
- Holdings:
- Rare Books and ManuscriptsFolio A N 82Yale Center for British Art, Paul Mellon Fund[Request]
- Copyright Status:
- Public Domain
- Full Orbis Record:
- http://hdl.handle.net/10079/bibid/9593960
- Classification:
- Drawings & Watercolors
- Notes:
- The amateur artist Alexander Marshal (born ca. 1610 or 1620; died 7 Dec 1682, London) was described in 1650 by Samuel Hartlib as a merchant and florist. He is best known now for his Florilegium, a volume of watercolors of exotic plants, painted circa 1650-1682, now in the Royal Library, Windsor Castle.
Title from Leith-Ross (Appendix C: List of known works by Marshal).
Provenance: Sir James Winter Lake; Sotheby's (1978); Paul Mellon.
Selected exhibitions: "Paul Mellon's Legacy: A Passion for British Art" (Yale Center for British Art, 18 April-29 July, 2007).
Leith-Ross, P. The Florilegium of Alexander Marshal in the collection of Her Majesty the Queen at Windsor Castle, p. 369
Griffiths, A. Print in Stuart Britain, 1603-1689, p. 79-81
Watercolor painting of St. George and the dragon, by Alexander Marshal. The watercolor is affixed to a blank leaf in volume 3 of Sir James Winter Lake's extra-illustrated copy of Horace Walpole's Anecdotes of painting in England (2nd edition. Twickenham : Strawberry Hill Press, 1765-1780; YCBA Folio A N 82). The leaf bearing the watercolor is bound between pages 70 and 71. On the verso of the same leaf is a second original watercolor by Marshal (depicting the head of an old woman). The other watercolor, and the Anecdotes, are cataloged separately.
Marshal's watercolor is a copy of a painting by Raphael. That painting, now in the National Gallery in Washington, D.C., had been supposedly commissioned by the Duke of Urbino in 1505 as a gift for Henry VII, who had made the duke a Knight of the Order of the Garter. By 1627 the painting was owned by William Herbert, the 3rd Earl of Pembroke, but it was in the royal collections by 1639/40. It is conceivable that Marshal saw the original, but as his drawing reverses the image in the painting and changes the color of St. George's cloak and the dragon, it is more likely that Marshal is copying one of the several engravings after the painting known to have been produced in the 1620s, including versions by Lucas Vorsterman (the elder) and David Granger (cf. Griffiths). Marshal had a collection of Old Master prints, although it is not known whether he owned a copy of St. George and the dragon. - Subject Terms:
- Animals, Mythical, in art.Dragons in art.George, Saint, d. 303 -- Art.Granger, David, 1611–1675.Lake, James Winter, ca. 1745–1807.Marshal, Alexander.Painting, Italian.Raphael, 1483–1520. St. George and the dragon (National Gallery of Art (U.S.))Religion in art.Vorsterman, Lucas Emil, 1595–1675.
- Form/Genre:
- Watercolors.
- Export:
- XML
- IIIF Manifest:
- JSON
Paul Mellon's Legacy : A Passion for British Art (Yale Center for British Art, 2007-04-18 - 2007-07-29) [YCBA Objects in the Exhibition]
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