The Great Red Dragon Paintings


The Great Red Dragon Paintings are a series of watercolour paintings by the English poet and painter William Blake, painted between 1805 and 1810. It was during this period that Blake was commissioned to create over a hundred paintings intended to illustrate books of the Bible. These paintings depict 'The Great Red Dragon' in various scenes from the Book of Revelation.

The paintings

''The Great Red Dragon and the Woman Clothed in Sun''

Height: 43.7 cm, Width: 34.8 cm
Housed at the Brooklyn Museum.

''The Great Red Dragon and the Woman Clothed with the Sun''

This image is similar to the work of the same name in the Brooklyn Museum but the subject is shown from a different viewpoint and the figures are in different positions.
Height: 40.8 cm, Width: 33.7 cm
Housed at the National Gallery of Art, Washington D.C..

''The Great Red Dragon and the Beast from the Sea''

Height: 40.1 cm, Width: 35.6 cm
Housed at the National Gallery of Art, Washington D.C..

''The Number of the Beast is 666''

Height: 40.6 cm, Width: 33.0 cm
Housed at: the Rosenbach Museum & Library

In media

The painting The Great Red Dragon and the Woman Clothed in Sun plays a prominent role in Thomas Harris' novel Red Dragon, its film adaptations, Manhunter and Red Dragon, and the TV series Hannibal, in which the primary antagonist Francis Dolarhyde has an obsession with the painting. Dolarhyde is fixated with the strength and power he thinks the dragon exudes, so he kills entire families to "become" the dragon. He also has a giant tattoo of the dragon on his back. The painting is also referenced as King Ghidorah in the 2019 movie .
It has also been used as the Oxford World's Classics front cover of The Private Memoirs and Confessions of a Justified Sinner.