The Temptation Of Saint Anthony, After David Teniers The Younger, French School, 19th Century

The Temptation of Saint Anthony, after David Teniers the Younger, French School, 19th Century

Description:

In the half-light of a cave, Saint Anthony, an old man with a white beard dressed in a gray habit marked with the tau, a rosary at his belt, kneels in prayer, hands joined before a block of stone that serves as his altar. An open book, a skull, an hourglass, a crucifix, and a glazed stoneware jug form a true vanitas upon it. Behind him, a demon in the guise of a peasant, his hat pierced with a root, leans toward his ear and offers him a glass of wine: this is the temptation by drunkenness, which the hermit resists through the quiet concentration of his reading.

To the left, an old procuress wearing a white headcloth from which two horns emerge appears out of the shadows, a paper in her hand, escorted by a train of hybrid creatures with menacing jaws. A fantastic bird perched at the mouth of the cave, a bat and a flying fish, a horse's skull in the foreground, and a small beaked monster scurrying near the books left on the ground complete this bestiary inherited from Hieronymus Bosch, which Teniers treats with more mischief than terror.

Our painting, the work of a French School painter of the first half of the 19th century, reprises the large version of The Temptation of Saint Anthony painted by David Teniers the Younger in the 1650s and held at the Musée du Louvre. It reflects the favor the 17th-century Flemish masters then enjoyed among collectors, and the practice of copying after the museum's masterpieces. The palette of browns, grays, and ochres, lifted by the opening of blue sky at left and by the light on the saint's face, faithfully renders the atmosphere of the original.

Technique:

Oil on canvas, after David Teniers the Younger. French School, first half of the 19th century. Gilded wood and stucco frame, decorated with acanthus leaves, foliate friezes, and a beaded border.

Dimensions:

Without frame: Height 24 in (61 cm) - Width 19 1/2 in (49.5 cm)

With frame: Height 37 3/8 in (95 cm) - Width 33 1/16 in (84 cm)

Condition:

In fine original condition.

A minor chips to the gilded wood and stucco frame, minor wear to the gilding.

Biography:

David Teniers the Younger (Antwerp, 1610 – Brussels, 1690), son and pupil of David Teniers the Elder, was received as a master in the Antwerp Guild of Saint Luke in 1632-1633 and in 1637 married Anna Brueghel, daughter of Jan Brueghel the Elder. A painter of genre scenes, village fairs, tavern interiors, and fantastic subjects, he settled in Brussels in 1651 as court painter to Archduke Leopold Wilhelm, whose collections he came to oversee, and was among the founders of the Antwerp Academy. The Temptation of Saint Anthony was one of his favorite subjects, which he revisited throughout his career and which copyists and engravers disseminated widely into the 19th century.

Collections:

The original composition by David Teniers the Younger is held in Paris, at the Musée du Louvre. Other versions of The Temptation of Saint Anthony by the artist are held notably at the Museo del Prado, Madrid, and the Gemäldegalerie, Dresden.