Etudes de personnages (recto and verso)

Cézanne painted three canvases on the theme of the Temptation of Saint Anthony: Rewald no. 167, circa 1870; no. 240, circa 1874; and no. 300, circa 1877. The present sheet of studies depicts Saint Anthony in his monk's robe throwing up his arms to shield himself from a terrible vision. A similar pose appears in another related sheet of studies, Chappuis, no. 445, dated to 1869-1872, which additionally shows the saint tormented by Satan. Neither sheet is directly related to the first oil version, painted around this time, in which Saint Anthony encounters a bevy of nude women. Cézanne made further drawings of Saint Anthony until about 1878 (see Chappuis, nos. 444, 446-450, and 452). The later studies and paintings may have been partly inspired by the publication in 1874 of Gustave Flaubert's La Tentation de Saint Antoine, a text in dramatic form that the author had begun many years earlier, having published some fragments as early as 1857.