Temptation of Saint Anthony

The Temptation of Anthony has provided fertile material for artistic invention and exploration since the Middle Ages. Initially recorded by Athanasius of Alexandria, the saint’s legend was popularised across Europe through various vernacular translations of his Life of St Anthony and Jacobus de Voragine’s Golden Legend. David Teniers the Younger was clearly captivated by this particular episode in the Saint’s legend, since he revisited the subject throughout his career; indeed, among his religious paintings, The Temptation of Saint Anthony constitutes the largest homogenous group of works, with examples dating from 1635 to the mid-1660s. This painting can be dated stylistically to circa 1665, when Teniers was working at the Archducal Court in Brussels. Teniers was evidently aware of treatments of the same subject by his fellow countryman, Jan Breughel the Elder, who in turn had looked back to earlier sources, most notably the fantastical compositions of Hieronymus Bosch.

The number of times Teniers returned to the motif also indicates how popular it was among his patrons, both as a moralising subject and as an opportunity of presenting the curious and the unknown, akin, perhaps, with the fashion for Wunderkammer, or 'cabinet of curiosities', which had become increasingly popular among wealthy collectors with a fascination for rare, beautiful and exotic objects. The focal point of this painting is the sumptuously dressed temptress, sent by the devil to lure the stoic saint from his devotions. She and her entourage are dressed in contemporary court fashion, reinforcing the moral message of the scene. The saint’s secluded cave is transformed into a sheltered grotto set within the remains of a classical building, a reference to the collapse of the pagan religion, adorned with a large statue of Abundance in a niche. Teniers employed a similar setting in his The Temptation of Saint Anthony, now in the State Hermitage Museum, St Petersburg.Teniers incorporated a view of rolling hills with a shepherd and his flock, and a castle on a clifftop, in several other mature paintings, including his Saints Paul and Anthony (private collection; Christie’s, London, 9 July 2014, lot 155). The combination of a religious scene of hermitic asceticism with a landscape may in fact have been designed to further the religious import of the subject: with the castle representing the counter-image to the monastic life of Saint Anthony; and the humble shepherd reinforcing the virtues of modest, peaceful living.

The attribution has been endorsed by Dr. Ursula Härting (certificate dated 25 April 2019).