The Great Red Dragon and the Woman Clothed with the Sun

William Blake

Pen and ink with watercolor over graphite

National Gallery of Art

This visionary watercolor by the English poet and painter William Blake depicts a scene from the Book of Revelation (12:1–4), in which a colossal red dragon, identified with Satan and rendered with magnificent bat-like wings and multiple heads, looms over a radiant woman resting on a crescent moon—a figure representing the Virgin Mary, Israel, and the Church. Blake executed the work in pen and ink with watercolor over graphite, employing bold outlines and luminous contrasts of golden light and deep shadow to dramatize the cosmic struggle between good and evil. The composition belongs to a four-painting cycle commissioned by Blake's principal patron, Thomas Butts, as part of a larger series of over one hundred biblical illustrations produced between 1805 and 1810. One of the foremost figures of English Romanticism, Blake fused prophetic poetry, engraving, and painting into a singular visionary art that remained largely unrecognized during his lifetime but is now celebrated as foundational to the Romantic tradition.