Whilst many of the New Sculptors sought an ever more naturalistic figurative, Alfred Gilbert became increasingly devoted to the expression of the unconscious, developing a language which was essentially Symbolic and which wholly contradicted the realism of his early figures. These later works are often embellished with ornament.

In St George and the Dragon, Victory Leading, St George shouts out for joy, urging his horse over the body of the slain dragon. The composition is an expression of a curious dream that Alfred Gilbert experienced on 15 May, 1904. He had dreamt that he was at work on an equestrian group of St George; the Saint, triumphant in victory, the defeated dragon spread-eagled over the pinnacles and turrets of a town. As in his vision, the finished work is sculpted with a compelling, dreamlike disjunction of scale.

Seeking a commission from the Lancashire regiment of Lord Grey for a large-scale memorial to the dead of the Boer War, he later added the figure of Victory to the original group. As the prospect of the commission became more probable, he placed the group on a six-sided base. The commission never materialized and the sculptor showed the plaster of St George and the Dragon at the Royal Academy in 1906 (number 1773).