Saint Michael (1450–67): Art, History and Details

Saint Michael (1450–67) is in the Cleveland Museum of Art collection. The museum's creator attribution is Master ES (German, active 1450–67).

The work and its context

The museum's open-access catalogue describes the work:

Wearing gothic armor and a spectacular cape, the Archangel Michael prepares to strike down two demons with a broadsword. As the leader of the battle against Satan in Saint John’s vision of the Apocalypse, Michael exemplified the medieval belief that angels fought every day to protect people from sinful temptation, characterized here by the face leering from the devil’s belly directly at the viewer.

Object facts

• Title: Saint Michael
• Date: 1450–67
• Creator attribution: Master ES (German, active 1450–67)
• Culture: Germany
• Type: Print
• Technique: engraving
• Dimensions: Sheet: 13.7 x 9 cm (5 3/8 x 3 9/16 in.)
• Collection: PR - Engraving
• Department: Prints
• Accession number: 1948.457

Collection credit

Grace Rainey Rogers Fund

Further reading listed by the museum

• Francis, Henry. "The Engravings of the Master E.S." The Bulletin of the Cleveland Museum of Art 38, no. 9 (November 1951): 307-211.

View the collection record

See the museum's photographs and full catalogue entry. Catalogue text is reproduced from the Cleveland Museum of Art's open-access data, with HTML formatting removed. This object and its supplied image are designated CC0.