Saint Anthony the Great,
oil on panel, 46 x 32 cm, framed

Provenance:
Private collection, Belgium;
art market, Belgium;
where acquired by the present owner

The present panel depicts the Temptation of Saint Anthony as told in the Legenda Aurea, or Golden Legend. The verdant scenery, Gothic, modest drapery and devilish creatures, which so powerfully evoke the wilderness and the spiritual torment which the saint suffered there, are borrowed from the oeuvre of Hieronymus Bosch (circa 1450–1516). Bosch’s circa 1500 triptych conserved in the Museu Nacional de Arte Antiga, Lisbon, and another treatment of the subject in the Museo Lázaro Galdiano, Madrid, appear to be the main antecedents of the present panel. The current work, executed by a gifted follower, may be compared with other treatments of the same subject by followers of Bosch, such as that conserved in the Gemaldegalerie, Berlin (inv. no. 1647) which shows the hermit depicted in a greater space, yet still with a rock for a lectern.

There is a photograph of the present work, with an old attribution to Bosch’s contemporary, ‘Patinir’ (Joachim, circa 1480–1524) written upon it, in the archive of M. J. Friedländer, that was deposited at the RKD, The Hague.