Statue of Saint Michael overcoming the Dragon, carved, painted and gilded walnut wood, France, ca. 1300-1350

The archangel Michael is shown overcoming Satan, here represented in the form of a dragon. Michael is dressed in loose mantle over a tunic, his right hand is raised to hold the shaft of a spear (now missing) his left arm rests on his side, the hand holds a shield.

The sculpture has been severely attacked by woodworm and the worst affected parts have been replaced by pierced-in sections of new wood. The main additions are the major part of the shield, the left hand and forearm, a large vertical section under the drapery hanging from his right arm and the head of the dragon. The saint's tunic was originally azurite blue, the mantle hanging diagonally across his body was red, while his face and neck were painted in naturalistic flesh tones, and his hair was gilded. Pieces of canvas were laid over the rougher areas of wood or nails joining separate pieces, and the gesso and paint were applied on top. At the back of the figure, below the shoulder blades, are two rectangular slots, now filled with wooden plugs, which originally held wings.

Historical significance: Saint Michael is represented with bare feet, an allusion to his divinity, and clad in a mantle over a tunic, instead of the armour featuring in Italian and Byzantine depictions.
The stylistic features of this sculpture relate to works produced in the Ile-de-France in the second quarter of the fourteenth century. The heavy and looping folds of Saint Michael's tunic are similar in treatment to that of standing figures in Paris of that date, and the high quality of the head suggests a metropolitan provenance.

Saint Michael is the Christian angel of death. He assists the dying, accompanies the souls to their private judgment, brings them to purgatory, and afterward presents them to God at their entrance into Heaven. Thus he is the actual patron of the holy souls. As Satan is "ruler" in hell so Michael is the "governor" of Heaven.

The theme of Saint Michael overcoming the dragon made its first appearance at the Sanctuary of Monte Sant'Angelo, in Gargano, Southeast Italy, in the early middle ages. After spreading throughout Italy, it reached France, gaining maximum importance in the Carolingian Empire, which adopted the Archangel's image as a synthesis of the imperial power. By the fourteenth century the cult of Saint Michael had spread across Europe, also through other places of worship, created in imitation of the original 'mount sanctuary', such as Mont-Saint-Michel in Normandy. The Valois were particularly devoted to Saint Michael and Philip IV even used his image on his coinage in 1341. In the thirteenth to the fifteenth centuries representations of the Archangel trampling the devil in the form of a dragon became very popular.

By the fourteenth century the cult of the Archangel Michael, which spread across Europe and mount sanctuaries, such as that at Mont-Saint-Michel in Normandy, had been established in a number of countries. The representation of the angel trampling the devil in the form of a dragon underfoot, with a shield in his left hand and a spear in his raised right hand, became very popular in the thirteenth to fifteenth centuries, and many sculptures of this type survive.

526-1895