Italian Renaissance masterpieces, £19.99 Height: 415.000 mm
Width: 335.000 mm Prints and Drawings Jacopo Bellini, St Michael
Defeating Satan, a drawing Italy, about AD 1455-65 Although few
paintings by Jacopo Bellini (about 1400-70/1) survive, both The
British Museum and the Musée du Louvre in Paris own a bound
volume of his compositional drawings. The London volume contains
one hundred and thirty four drawings, nearly all drawn in
According to Revelation, the last book of the Bible, war broke
out in heaven and St Michael and his angels defeated the dragon
or Satan and the forces of evil. In this two page drawing, St
Michael flies across the rocky and fiery landscape of Hell to
attack Satan. The Devil cowers at lower right, long horns on his
head and bat's wings on his back. The archangel's sword has
split open the rocks, allowing a figure to crawl out and another
to witness the angelic battle. The main scene takes place on the
recto (front) of the sheet and continues onto the verso (back)
of the previous she