The Temptation of St. Anthony (1506): Art, History and Details

The Temptation of St. Anthony (1506) is in the Cleveland Museum of Art collection. The museum's creator attribution is Lucas Cranach (German, 1472–1553).

The work and its context

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

The group of demonic figures attacking Saint Anthony was inspired by the Martin Schongauer engraving of the same subject from about 1475, though the extensive landscape is a fine example of Cranach's individual style. The Temptation of Saint Anthony has possible connections to the Chancellor of Wittenberg University, Goswin von Orsoy (1450-1515), who was also the preceptor of the Antonite monastery at nearby Lichtenburg. The group of buildings in the scene may represent this monastery, which was later destroyed; the monastery also owned a chapel in Wittenberg where there was an altarpiece of Saint Anthony.

Object facts

• Title: The Temptation of St. Anthony
• Date: 1506
• Creator attribution: Lucas Cranach (German, 1472–1553)
• Culture: Germany
• Type: Print
• Technique: woodcut
• Collection: PR - Woodcut
• Department: Prints
• Accession number: 1945.340

Collection credit

Dudley P. Allen Fund

Further reading listed by the museum

• Cleveland Museum of Art. Images of the Mind. Cleveland, Ohio: Cleveland Museum of Art, 1987.

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.