Object details
Accession number
S4n1
Primary Creator
German
Full title
Saint George
Creation Date
about 1500-1510
Provenance
Purchased by Isabella Stewart Gardner from the art dealer Theodor Einstein & Co., Munich with a second statue of Saint Florian (museum no. S4n3) for a total of 2,460 marks on 16 August 1897 through her husband, John L. Gardner, Jr. (1837–1898).
Dimensions
179.1 x 27.9 x 41.9 cm (70 1/2 x 11 x 16 1/2 in.)
Display Media
Polychromed and gilded wood
Dimension Notes
Length and width dimensions were taken at the sculpture's base.
Web Commentary
This painted wood sculpture depicts Saint George, the patron saint of England and Ethiopia. He holds a lance over the dragon at his feet, slain for terrorizing the town of Silene, Libya. This figure, along with the neighboring sculpture of Saint Florian, was originally a symbolic guardian of a monumental altarpiece in early 16th-century Bavaria. It seems fitting that Isabella placed the two saints at the formal entrance of the museum to supervise the passageway.
Permanent Gallery Location
Main Entrance Passage and Lobby
Bibliography
Catalogue. Fenway Court. (Boston, 1903), p. 3. (as "German gothic")
Gilbert Wendel Longstreet and Morris Carter. General Catalogue (Boston, 1935), p. 41. (as Southern German, early 17th century)
Charles L. Kuhn. "German Late Gothic Sculpture in the Gardner Museum, Boston" in Wilhelm Reinhold Walter Koehler (ed.). Medieval Studies in Memory of A. Kingsley Porter (Cambridge, 1939), pp. 565-66, 568, fig. 5. (as Tyrolese, about 1490-1500)
Morris Carter. "Mrs. Gardner & The Treasures of Fenway Court" in Alfred M. Frankfurter (ed.). The Gardner Collection (New York, 1946), p. 57, ill.
Anneliese Harding. German Sculpture in New England Museums (Boston, 1972), p. 83. (as a "19th century imitation of a late Gothic figure")
Cornelius C. Vermeule III et al. Sculpture in the Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum (Boston, 1977), p. 91, no. 119. (as Bavarian or Tyrolean, about 1500-1510)
Rollin van N. Hadley. Museums Discovered: The Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum (Boston, 1981), pp. 166-167, ill. (as Bavarian or Tyrolean, about 1500-1510)
Jürgen Rohmeder. Erasmus Grasser: Bildhauer, Bau- Und Werkmeister (Bern, 2003), p. 110. (included in a list of sculptures for future study; possibly by Erasmus Grasser)
Rights and reproductions
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