Anonymous: Griffin and Dragon from Arlanza (1210)

(Museu Nacional d'Art de Catalunya, Barcelona, Spain & Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York, USA)

Two mural paintings by an unknown artist/ artists. These two come from the Benedictine monastery of San Pedro de Arlanza. When the complex was abandoned in 1841, the objects were moved to musea. The two murals were depicted on either side of a door in the 'Torre del Tesoro' room in the complex. On the left is a Griffin (a legendary creature with the body, tail, and back legs of a lion; the head, wings and front feet of an eagle) and on the right is a dragon. The two animals probably didn't have any symbolic meaning for the monastery complex besides 'aesthetic delight'. Murals from round 1210.