St. Michael Vanquishing Satan

St. Michael Vanquishing Satan is a painting by the Italian High Renaissance painter Raphael. It is a large-scale and mature version of a subject he had earlier treated in the youthful miniature of St. Michael. Both works are located in the Louvre in Paris, France. Raphael first visited the subject of Michael at the behest of Guidobaldo da Montefeltro, Duke of Urbino. The miniature was completed in 1504 or 1505 on the back of a draughtboard, possibly commissioned to express appreciation to Louis XII of France for conferring the Order of Saint Michael on Francesco Maria I della Rovere, Urbino's... nephew and heir. A little more than a decade after completing the little St. Michael, Raphael was commissioned to revisit the theme, producing St. Michael Vanquishing Satan for Pope Leo X. Raphael's contemporary, Sebastiano of Venice, wrote Michelangelo in July of the year the painting was completed to complain of the coloring of the work, suggesting that the figure looked smoky or made of iron because of the exaggerated contrast between the two sides.
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