The Archangel Michael Piercing the Dragon (c. 1475): Art, History and Details

The Archangel Michael Piercing the Dragon (c. 1475) is in the Cleveland Museum of Art collection. The museum's creator attribution is Martin Schongauer (German, c. 1450–1491).

The work and its context

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

The Archangel Michael is the victorious defender and leader of God's armies, who battled against Satan the dragon and the rebellious angels to expel them from heaven (Revelation 12:7–9). From the narrative of this apocalyptic combat, Martin Schongauer isolates the figure of the Archangel Michael in the very moment he is finally overcoming Satan by trampling and piercing it with a long spear. He portrayed the dragon as a hybrid creature with horns, bird talons, crayfish claws, snake-like tail, and fur. Its ugliness and spiky forms contrast with the graceful feathery wings of the archangel, whose perfectly curled hair is set with a cruciform diadem adorned with pearls. Schongauer isolated the subject against a blank background, using a system of hatching to render complex drapery folds. In late medieval devotion, images of the Archangel Michael vanquishing the dragon were believed to be a protective tool that warded off evil.

Object facts

• Title: The Archangel Michael Piercing the Dragon
• Date: c. 1475
• Creator attribution: Martin Schongauer (German, c. 1450–1491)
• Culture: Germany
• Type: Print
• Technique: engraving
• Dimensions: Platemark: 16.2 x 11.5 cm (6 3/8 x 4 1/2 in.); Mat Size: 49 x 36.3 cm (19 5/16 x 14 5/16 in.)
• Collection: PR - Engraving
• Department: Prints
• Accession number: 1952.99

A detail from the museum

The dragon of this print resembles monsters in another engraving by Martin Schongauer, The Temptation of Saint Anthony (1923.227).

Collection credit

Dudley P. Allen Fund

Further reading listed by the museum

• Richards, Louise. "Engravings by Martin Schongauer." The Bulletin of the Cleveland Museum of Art 42, no. 3 (March 1955): 43-45.

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.