The Temptation of St. Anthony (1470–75): Art, History and Details

The Temptation of St. Anthony (1470–75) is in the Cleveland Museum of Art collection. The museum's creator attribution is Martin Schongauer (German, c. 1450–1491).

The work and its context

The museum's open-access catalogue describes the work:

Saint Anthony (c. AD 251–356) was an Egyptian hermit known for having established the ideal of monasticism, seclusion, and meditation in Christianity. According to the Life of Saint Anthony written by the 20th bishop of Alexandria Athanasius (c. AD 360), Anthony was assaulted by several demons and tormented by erotic visions during his retreat to the Eastern Desert of Egypt. Martin Schongauer's print marks the very moment in which a highly animated demonic attack took place in the sky. Nine whimsical monsters—composed of reptilian, mammalian, and fish- and bird-like parts—flap, blow, and grasp a stiff and indifferent Saint Anthony. With his firm discipline, the saint epitomizes the Christian's struggle to resist evil temptations.

Object facts

• Title: The Temptation of St. Anthony
• Date: 1470–75
• Creator attribution: Martin Schongauer (German, c. 1450–1491)
• Culture: Germany
• Type: Print
• Technique: engraving
• Dimensions: Sheet: 29.9 x 22.1 cm (11 3/4 x 8 11/16 in.)
• Collection: PR - Engraving
• Department: Prints
• Accession number: 1923.227

A detail from the museum

Prints of Saint Anthony like this one were believed to function as protective tools against ergotism (also called St. Anthony's Fire), a disease causing painful putrefaction of the limbs cased by fungus found on rye.

Collection credit

Dudley P. Allen Fund

Further reading listed by the museum

• "St. Anthony Tormented by the Devils." The Bulletin of the Cleveland Museum of Art 10, no. 7 (July, 1923): 123-130.
• The Cleveland Museum of Art. Handbook of the Cleveland Museum of Art. Cleveland, OH: The Cleveland Museum of Art, 1925.
• The Cleveland Museum of Art. Handbook of the Cleveland Museum of Art. Cleveland, OH: The Cleveland Museum of Art, 1928.

View the collection record

See the museum's photographs and full catalogue entry. Catalogue text is reproduced from the Cleveland Museum of Art's open-access data, with HTML formatting removed. This object and its supplied image are designated CC0.