Dante Gabriel Rossetti

Acquired by the father of the present owner

The Princess Sabra Taken to the Dragon is a replica or version of one of the six cartoons for stained glass depicting the story of St George designed by Rossetti for Morris, Marshall, Faulkner and Co in 1861-2, now in the Birmingham City Art Gallery. This series was one of Rossetti’s most significant contributions to the work of "The Firm” and a highly important example of Victorian decorative art. It has been suggested that the designs were for stained glass made for a house belonging to a Mr Charles Hastings of Yorkshire but this is unconfirmed and A. Charles Sewter in his study of The Stained Glass of William Morris and his Circle states ‘the purpose for which these panels were made is not known.’¹ The stained-glass windows are now at the Victoria & Albert Museum, London; the present scene bears the motto ‘How the woful Princess was borne to be eaten of the Dragon’.

The composition depicts the bound and mournful Princess in a carriage surrounded by guards being taken through the town to be offered as a sacrifice to the dragon; the townsfolk are gathered in the street and at windows to see the poor girl being offered as the latest victim of the beast, not yet knowing that she will be saved by St George. It is very probable that Rossetti had been inspired by one of his favourite source texts, Jacobus de Voragine's The Golden Legend.

There exists a set of copies of four of the St George designs in Birmingham City Art Gallery made by Rosa Corder, mistress of Rossetti’s sometime agent and personal secretary Charles Howell. These are in watercolours and do not seem to relate to the present drawing.

1. A. Charles Sewter, The Stained Glass of William Morris and his Circle, Yale University Press 1977, p. 96, note 27