A man on horseback drives a spear into a dragon in this nearly square drawing. Created with brown washes on darkened, tan paper, the scene emerges slowly, and many details are indistinct. The horse faces away from us angled to our left. Its front legs rear up and its head turned so we see it in profile. The rider braces against the stirrup we can see and plunges a spear into a serpentine dragon to our lower left. Some areas are defined with cream-white or charcoal-gray lines. For instance, white lines shape the rider’s clothing and delineate where the underside of the horse stands out against the background. The horse’s eyes, nose, and parted mouth are drawn in with gray. A tiny star mark is near the lower left corner of the sheet and an incomplete black stamp with initials is in the lower right.
Artwork Details
- Date
- c. 1506
- Medium
- brush and brown ink heightened with white over black chalk, incised with stylus
- Dimensions
- 3259 × 3963 px
- Public Domain
- Yes
- Museum Record
- View original