The Great Red Dragon and the Woman Clothed with the Sun

c. 1805

Pen and gray ink with watercolor over graphite, 40.8 × 33.7 cm. National Gallery of Art, Washington

A horned, winged dragon hovers over a woman wrapped in light, who kneels on a dark, rough mass at the foot of the sheet with her arms flung wide. The scene comes from the Book of Revelation, where the dragon waits to devour her newborn child.

Made for Thomas Butts, Blake's loyal patron, as part of a long series of Bible pictures.
Look at the dragon's spread wings, which arch across the top of the sheet like a canopy.
One of four Great Red Dragon subjects Blake painted, each with a different composition.
A watercolor on a Bible theme is given the ambition of history painting. Blake treated a medium then ranked below oil as fit for the grandest visionary subjects.
Given to the National Gallery of Art by Lessing J. Rosenwald in 1943.

Image: National Gallery of Art, Washington (open access) · Public domain