St. George and the Dragon, c. 1490, 2.28 x 3.5 m, painted and gilded oak, hair, antler, leather, rope, metal, stone, and gems, Storkyrkan Stockholm (photo: Alexey M., CC BY-SA 4.0)
A fairy tale in sculpture
A massive, over-life-sized sculptural group of St. George and the Dragon in the City Church of St. Nicholas, Stockholm reads like a fairy tale. St. George, the figure on horseback, defeats an attacking dragon to save a princess. The artist selected the most dramatic moment of the fight, the climax when St. George raises his sword to unleash the fatal strike to the dragon.
St. George and the Dragon, c. 1490, Storkyrkan Stockholm (photo: Øyvind Holmstad, CC BY-SA 4.0)
This tale hails from St. George’s hagiography (writing of the lives of saints), compiled in the medieval text known as the Golden Legend (Legenda aurea). George stumbles upon a princess in a town called Silene. Her father, the King, must sacrifice his daughter to placate the dragon that lives outside the city walls. As an officer in the Roman army, George pledges to save the princess “in the name of Christ” if the entire town agrees to be baptized. George victoriously defeats the dragon, and in turn, rescues not just the distressed princess but also the entire town through Christian conversion.
The sculpture’s artist (whose identity is debated among art historians) visually translates this triumphant Christian narrative into a three-dimensional devotional structure of huge proportions: the figure of George is seven feet six inches high (2.28m) and the entire group is nearly 11 feet long (3.5m)— roughly the size of an average male African elephant.
Princess on top of a citadel, St. George and the Dragon, Storkyrkan Stockholm, c. 1490 (photo: Rainer Halama, CC BY-SA 4.0). The base features carved narrative reliefs of St. George in Silene. In this photo, St. George and the King (the two gilded figures on the left) visit the construction of a new church.
In the current arrangement, the kneeling princess is supported on a separate base from the one that holds St. George and the Dragon. She’s placed on top of a citadel that symbolically represents the town of Silene.
One side of the main base showing scenes from the life of Saint George. St. George and the Dragon, Storkyrkan Stockholm, c. 1490 (photo: BugWarp, CC BY-SA 4.0)
The martyrdom of Saint George on a plank is on the far left. St. George and the Dragon, Storkyrkan Stockholm, c. 1490 (photo: Amadalvarez, CC BY-SA 4.0)
On the sides of the reconstructed bases, there are miniature carved reliefs that further translate a complex story into three-dimensional reality. The main base features eight carved reliefs showing scenes from the life of the patron saint. One scene represents a violent tale of St. George’s torture. The saint lies nearly naked on a plank as his tormentors brutally cut his body and rub salt into his wounds. Despite this infliction of horrific pain, St. George remains unfazed and deeply committed to his faith.
Storkyrkan Stockholm located in the center of the old town of Stockholm, Gamla stan (photo: Guillaume Baviere, CC BY-SA 2.0)
The St. George and the Dragon sculptural group was installed in the City Church of St. Nicholas (in Swedish, Storkyrkan) in Stockholm. Sources record the arrival of “ye great George in Stockholm’s town church” in 1489. The sculpture is currently located at the northern aisle of the chancel in the same church today, but its original placement and reconstruction in the church remain speculative. Nonetheless, it still stands as a rare example of freestanding sculpture in Scandinavia and as the largest equestrian monument from late-medieval northern Europe.
Detail of the horses harness with Saint George. St. George and the Dragon, Storkyrkan Stockholm, c. 1490 (photo: Laura Tillery)
Piety and propaganda
The sculptural group performed many functions. It was a tomb, a relic, and a national monument. Sten Sture, the governor (or regent) of Sweden, commissioned the sculpture and was briefly buried inside the base of the monument (he was later moved to the abbey church of Mariefred). In donating a monument for his burial inside the city’s greatest church, Sten participated in the late-medieval culture of piety to ensure his eternal salvation. His coats of arms—the water-lily leaf—are located on the front side of the base under St. George and on both sides of the harness of the horse, alternating with the cross of St. George.
St. George and the Dragon, Storkyrkan Stockholm, c. 1490 (photo: Rainer Halama, CC BY-SA 4.0)
Claus Sluter, Tomb of Philip the Bold, 1390–1406, alabaster, 243 cm high (Musée Archéologique, Dijon; photo: Dr. Andrew Murray)
At the base of the interlocking St. George and the dragon, macabre carvings of severed human and animal extremities further heighten the drama and intensity of the narrative. Such gruesome imagery—magnified on a massive tomb monument—certainly reinforces the intended burial function of the monument. It also departs from the recumbent tomb effigies that were prevalent throughout northern Europe.
Sten had political motivations for commissioning this work as well. His political power was solidified after his victory against Danish King Christian I’s army at the Battle of Brunkeberg in 1471. Legend says that Sten and his army prayed to St. George before the battle. In the Middle Ages, the knightly St. George served as a warrior saint to protect against illness or danger.
St. George and the Dragon, Storkyrkan Stockholm, c. 1490 (photo: Richard Mortel, CC BY 2.0)
The figure of St. George also contained bundles of relics inside his chest, located behind his breastplate in four compartments. Originally the compartments were covered in rock crystal, but now four wooden panels protect the relic containers (so the relics are no longer visible today). Some evidence suggests that Sten personally requested relics for the cult of St. George from the Vatican in 1492.
The sculptural group further worked as a visual reminder of Sten’s power, which was under threat during the last decades of the fifteenth century. This notably overlaps with the time St. George was likely installed. The specific choice of St. George and the Dragon functioned as a potent subject to commemorate Swedish victory over the King of Denmark and Norway: Sten’s victory at Brunkeberg parallels the narrative of George fighting the dragon, where Stockholm under Danish threat stood as an allegory of Silene besieged by the dragon.
The carved figure of St. George, removable from the saddle, was processed through the streets of Stockholm on the anniversary of the battle on 10 October to commemorate the Swedish victory. Moreover, St. George wears the Swedish national colors, blue and yellow, branding the work as an early national monument to Sweden before Swedish independence in 1523.
Multimedia materials
The bulk of the St. George sculptural group is made from carved and polychromed oak. In northern Europe during the late-medieval and early modern periods, oak was the most common material for carved sculpture. In the workshop, artisans prepared the oak for painting (also called polychromy) and gilding.
Detail of the dragon with elk antlers added as horns and spine, St. George and the Dragon, Storkyrkan Stockholm, c. 1490 (photo: Laura Tillery)
Still, a distinct aspect of this sculpture is the incorporation of multiple materials found in real life to create a striking life-like effect. Looking closely, the dragon’s horns and spine are not carved from oak, but real elk antlers. St. George’s belt is painted rope. Wielded metal forms the saddle, reins, and bridle. The straps between the plates of St. George’s armor and stirrup are actual leather. Gems and stones decorate the gilded military honors. The veins on the straining horse were crafted from pieces of string beneath the gesso and polychromy.
More fragile original elements have since been lost. Early conservation reports note that animal hide was inserted inside the horse’s ear and the horse’s mane and tail were made from real hair. The skull underneath the dragon also originally wore a wig from human hair, and traces of human hair were found on the bust of the dead man. The use of multimedia materials ultimately testify to the ability of sculpture to reproduce a suspenseful battle with remarkable illusionism in a three-dimensional setting.
Detail of princess, St. George and the Dragon, Storkyrkan Stockholm, c. 1490 (photo: Laura Tillery)
Such effects that play with levels of reality are unparalleled in a sculpture this size in the Baltic Sea region. And moreover, since so few monumental sculptures from northern Europe have survived after the Reformation, the St. George group truly gives us insight into the material splendor of pre-modern sculpture.
An art history mystery
In spite of the work’s compelling subject matter, function as a tomb-relic-monument, and striking employment of multiple materials, the driving art historical interest has centered on identifying the artist. Who made this work of art? The short answer: we don’t know, but specialists have spent over a century debating it.
Baltic region (underlying map © Google)
Simply put, there’s no written documentation connecting this work to a specific artist or workshop. The long-standing attribution is credited to Bernt Notke, a master from Lübeck, Germany. Notke maintained one of the largest workshops in the Baltic region that had the resources to make such a monumental work; his workshop also made large-scale carved and painted altarpieces for churches in Denmark and Estonia. Notke’s workshop was known to use found materials, like rope, metal, and string in his works of art, so the Stockholm sculpture’s clever integration of multi-materials seems to favor his attribution. Archival documents further show his residency in Stockholm around the time that the St. George sculptural group was likely made, although nothing concretely links Notke to St. George.
However, not everyone agrees with the Notke attribution. Swedish art conservator Peter Tångeberg rejects Notke’s hand to suggest that the Stockholm sculpture came from a workshop in Antwerp, a city that was the leading producer of art exported to Scandinavia in the first decades of the sixteenth century. To this day the St. George sculptural group is still the subject of art historical technical investigation. Perhaps one day we will finally gain insight into the artist of this famous Stockholm sculpture.
St. George and the Dragon, c. 1490, Storkyrkan Stockholm (photo: Alexey M., CC BY-SA 4.0)
A three-dimensional story
The St. George and the Dragon sculptural group remains a remarkable three-dimensional work of art that uses life-like materials to tell a popular medieval story. This surviving large-scale work attests to the skill of late-medieval craftsmanship in making an illusionistic sculpture, as well as sculpture’s capacity to fulfill spiritual and political needs.
