Carved Group : Saint Georges Slaying the Dragon

Officer in a Roman Legion and legendary Saint said to be a native of Cappadocia, Georges rescues a city terrorized by a dragon. The princess saved from the dragon became the symbol of the Christian Church and the dragon, that of paganism. Saint with a military vocation mainly because of his heroic struggle, Georges personified the chivalric ideal of the Middle Ages.

Saint George is often depicted fighting on horseback: the sword at his side, he was here brandishing a spear in his right hand holding the reins from the left hand, a shield -often ensigned with a cross- fixed to his forearm. The harnessing decorated with rattles and the mane of the horse were carved with precision, as well as the body of the dragon, whose twist suggests that the animal was exhaling.

The sculpture may have belonged to a monument erected by a patrician Messin who elected for his burial the Franciscan Convent of Metz, according to a common practice at the end of the Middle Ages. Remains of sculptured funerary monuments, epitaphs and inscriptions still visible in the remaining sections of the cloister of the former convent are other witnesses.

Sculpture in the round, limestone of Jaumont
Second quarter of the 14th Century
From the former Convent of the Cordeliers of Metz
Inv. 2009.0.7
Restored in 2010

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