(Antwerp 1607–1661)
The Temptation of Saint Anthony,
oil on panel, 50 x 64.5 cm, framed

The present painting is a lively and masterfully executed piece of Antwerp Baroque genre painting from the hand of Cornelis de Baillieur, drawing on rich iconographic antecedents from the preceding century originating with the Brabantine master Hieronymous Bosch (circa 1450–1516). Bosch’s triptychs conserved in the Museu Nacional de Arte Antiga, Lisbon, and another treatment of the subject in the Museo Lázaro Galdiano, Madrid, depict this infernal episode from the life of Saint Anthony the Abbot.

This so-called Temptation of Saint Anthony, is recounted in the medieval Legenda Aurea, itself drawing on an earlier greek text written around 360 AD. The figure on the right of the current composition in the attire of a pilgrim en route to the shrine of Saint James, draws on the textual description, which says demons in the desert appeared to Anthony disguised as Holy men, while the licentious woman offering wine and the glutton bearing a pie are also alluded to in accounts of the temptation, constituting sins of the flesh warned against in the Life of Anthony. Conversely, the monkey-like features of the several of the demons exude the influence of de Baillieur’s Antwerp contemporaries, such as the Teniers family of artists, who popularised the sub-genre of satirical scenes of monkeys in human attire known as singeries.

The present Temptation of Saint Anthony is known in another autograph version (sale, Bonham’s, London, 3 July 2014, lot 26), in which de Baillieur used a different stock figure for the pie-bearer and removed a shoe from the figure of the pilgrim of Saint James to make him look more like a ruffian. The present work, as compared with the Bonham’s picture, has been further enlivened by de Baillieur by painting in two additional demons in the background, one in the form of a winged serpent, and the other reassembling some sort of demonic puffer-fish. Another treatment of the same subject, which relates to the overall compositional scheme of the present work was painted by Frans Francken II. De Baillieur trained under Anthonis Lisaert, before becoming an independent master of the Antwerp Guild of Saint Luke in 1626. As evidenced by the fluent handling of the present work, he was a gifted figure painter, often executing the staffage in other painters’ compositions, counting Hans Jordaens III among his key collaborators.