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Date : near 1504
Sizes : 26 cm x 31 cm
Material : Oil painting on wood
Acquisition : Collection of Louis XIV (1661)
| Item 31 on 33
Italian Painting
Painting (Religious theme)
Area related
Italy
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| Description |  |
Saint Michael Overwhelming the Demon may have been painted for Guidobaldo da Montefeltro, Duke of Urbino, around 1503−1505, at the same time as Saint George and the Dragon, with which it has always been associated.
This work is typical of a series of very small pictures Raphael painted around 1503−1505, when he was dividing his time between Perugia and Urbino. The influence of Perugino, discernable here in the lanky, dancing figure of Saint Michael, is combined with a strong debt to northern European painting, particularly Memling but also - herein lies the painting's originality - Hieronymus Bosch. The latter had very probably stayed in Venice around 1500 and his phantasmagorical creatures belonging to a totally imaginary, subterranean world and artificial light effects also fascinated Italian painters. Raphael was one of the first to be inspired by him, as shown here by the ghoulish figures Saint Michael is fighting and the landscape itself.
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