How Much Is The Great Red Dragon and the Woman Clothed with the Sun Worth?

Among the most celebrated images Blake ever created, The Great Red Dragon and the Woman Clothed with the Sun sits at the pinnacle of his Revelation series for Thomas Butts. It distills Blake’s visionary theology, draughtsmanship, and dramatic design into a single, unforgettable composition. The work’s scholarly centrality, ubiquity in survey texts, and crossover resonance beyond Blake specialists elevate it above most of the artist’s output. Within Blake’s oeuvre, it occupies the same echelon as the finest illuminated-book plates and the most ambitious standalone watercolors. This degree of cultural recognition meaningfully expands the potential bidder pool and supports a valuation that exceeds historical Blake pricing norms.

Finished, large-format Revelation watercolors by Blake almost never surface on the market; most are long held by major museums. The NGA sheet is one of a handful of fully realized Red Dragon compositions and is virtually irreplaceable for a collector or institution seeking a definitive Blake image. With no near substitutes in private hands, price elasticity increases sharply when an icon of this stature becomes hypothetically available. Scarcity-driven bidding has repeatedly propelled Old Master and British Romantic masterworks beyond prior artist records, and the supply constraints around the Butts watercolors are even tighter. This extreme rarity is a primary driver of the $18–30 million range.

The chain from the Butts commission to Robson & Co., A. Edward Newton, Lessing J. Rosenwald, and the National Gallery of Art confers exemplary provenance. The 1941 Parke-Bernet result anchors its 20th‑century market history; Rosenwald’s 1943 gift to the NGA secures its scholarly stature. Such a pedigree reduces transactional risk, enhances lender appeal, and increases bidder confidence—especially critical at the trophy level. Works with museum-grade provenance often achieve premiums because due diligence is simplified, narratives are compelling, and institutional references are unimpeachable. For a canonical Blake, this provenance context supports aggressive bidding without the uncertainties that can cap prices for lesser-documented works.

As a pen-and-ink and watercolor sheet of substantial size (40.8 × 33.7 cm), this work occupies the top end of Blake’s works-on-paper spectrum. Although watercolors can be light-sensitive and historically trade below oils, Blake’s market reverses some of that hierarchy: his most coveted objects are precisely unique watercolors and illuminated books. The $3.928m price for Good and Evil Angels (2004) demonstrates buyer willingness for ambitious pictorial works on paper, while recent records for Blake’s illuminated material affirm depth at the top. Assuming excellent condition and sensitive presentation, the medium should not inhibit a trophy-level result for so iconic an image.

Old Masters and British Romantic categories improved in 2025 after a softer 2024, with stronger sell-throughs and active cross-category bidding. Record Blake results since 2024 across books and prints indicate renewed and diversified demand when quality, rarity, and provenance align. In such conditions, museum-grade, instantly legible trophies tend to outperform, drawing interest from contemporary and cross-category collectors seeking cultural landmarks. Against this backdrop, the Red Dragon’s fame and scarcity argue for a step-change result relative to historical Blake prices. Proper sale timing and global positioning would likely maximize competition and support the upper half of the proposed range.