Triptych of the Temptation of St. Anthony, replica

Hieronymus BOSCH ’s-Hertogenbosch circa 1450 – ’s-Hertogenbosch 1516 ? - Oak, round top - 133,5 x 119,5 ; 131,5 x 53 ; 131 x 52,2 cm

This Triptych with the Temptation of St Anthony is a copy by a follower of Bosch. The original is in Lisbon. Anthony lived as a hermit in the Egyptian desert, where he was harassed by devils and demons. Those take the form of crippled beggars, hideous minstrels and warriors, hoars, pimps, itinerant riff-raff, unchaste monks and other degenerated clerics. There are allusions to drunkenness and gluttony, immorality, immoderacy, pugnacity and unbounded merrymaking. The triptych is intended as an allegory of earthly ruin, symbolised by despicable social situations and classes. They embody the lack of virtue of undesired members of society or reprehensible patterns of behaviour against which the late medieval citizen set himself apart.

© MRBAB/KMSKB (Photo Cussac)