A scene from the Life of Saint Eustace or Hubert

Before converting to Christianity, St. Eustace was a 2nd century Roman general named Placidus under the Emperor Trajan. Whilst hunting a stag in Tivoli, Placidus was said to have seen a vision of the crucifixion between a stag's antlers and immediately had himself and his family baptised, and changed his name to Eustace, meaning good fortune. The story of Saint Hubert (or Hubertus) is very similar. Born in the late 7th century, he missed Mass in order to go hunting and had the same miraculous vision which led him to a life of piety. As patrons of hunters and hunting, both saints became very popular in Europe throughout the Middle Ages and Renaissance and the similarities in their stories have led to their iconography becoming entangled. One of the best known depictions on the theme is the engraving of the vision of Saint Eustace by Albrecht Dürer from circa 1501. Much like in Dürer’s composition, in the present lot we see the deer emerging from the trees to the right with hunting dogs in the foreground. The panel that would have once been positioned to left of the present lot depicting the other half of the scene would have likely had a similar compositional arrangement to the engraving, showing the saint kneeling alongside his horse during the moment of the vision.