The Battle of St. James the Greater at Clavijo (1470–75): Art, History and Details

The Battle of St. James the Greater at Clavijo (1470–75) 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:

According to legend, in 846 A.D. during a battle in Clavijo, one of the Christ's apostles and the patron saint of Spain, Saint James the Greater, miraculously appeared on the battlefield and helped the Christian armies of the Spanish king Ramirez defeat Muslim forces. Martin Schongauer portrays the climax of the battle, as Saint James appears on his steed at the center of the scene amidst gruesome beheaded corpses and dismembered limbs. The saint is brandishing a sword and wearing a scallop shell on his hat--an emblem adopted and worn by pilgrims during their travels to James's burial place, the Spanish Cathedral of Santiago de Compostela.

Object facts

• Title: The Battle of St. James the Greater at Clavijo
• Date: 1470–75
• Creator attribution: Martin Schongauer (German, c. 1450–1491)
• Culture: Germany
• Type: Print
• Technique: engraving
• Dimensions: Sheet: 28.9 x 43.3 cm (11 3/8 x 17 1/16 in.)
• Collection: PR - Engraving
• Department: Prints
• Accession number: 1924.213

A detail from the museum

In this unfinished plate, the shield in the right foreground, the fallen horse at the bottom left, the points on the lances of the soldier in the upper left corner, and the hilly landscape are all details left uncompleted.

Collection credit

Gift of Ralph King

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.