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Lot Essay
The early Christian hermit saint, Anthony Abbot (A.D. 251–356), is regarded as the founder of monasticism in the West. Around the age of twenty he renounced all of his earthly goods and retired to the Egyptian desert, where he embraced a solitary life of chastity, penance, and prayer. Anthony is identified in the present canvas by two of his standard attributes: the crutch, an allusion to his advanced age, and the rosary featuring a small skull, which would have encouraged his contemplation of the brevity of life on earth. The saint wears a brown monastic robe, with a small pouch fashioned from straw suspended from its belt, perhaps a reference to the alms collecting conducted by the order of Hospitallers founded in Anthony Abbot’s honor.
This canvas by Paolo Veronese originally belonged to a group of paintings depicting saints and the Risen Christ, all standing in identical fictive architectural niches, first connected together by Mina Gregori in 1960, when two of the canvases were exhibited at the Circolo Borghese e della Stampa in Florence. The paintings seem to have formed part of a two-tiered altarpiece, the reconstruction of which was proposed by Paola Marini in 2005 (op. cit.). Although the altarpiece is not documented and its original location remains an open question, it might have been intended for a church in the artist’s native Verona. The archaic two-tiered format persisted there well into the sixteenth century, as can be seen in an altarpiece of 1552 by Veronese’s master, Antonio Badile, for the confraternity of SS. Quattro Coronati in San Pietro Incarnario, the surviving elements of which are in the Museo di Castelvecchio, Verona. Other canvases belonging to Veronese's altarpiece complex include Saints Gregory the Great and Jerome in Zurich, Kunsthaus (figs. 1 and 2), which have slightly smaller dimensions and may have been cropped; Saints Peter and Paul (Alana Collection), and Saints Ambrose, Augustine and the Risen Christ (all untraced). Except for the two paintings now in Zurich, which were seen by Gustav Waagen in the W.E. Lake collection and were exhibited at the Royal Academy, London, in 1895, the paintings were in the same Neapolitan collection in the eighteenth century and subsequently remained together in a private collection, Florence.
Although there are variations in quality among paintings in the set, Saint Anthony Abbot is attributable to Paolo Veronese himself. Saints Ambrose and Augustine appear to be by a hand in the workshop of Veronese and these, together with the Risen Christ which would have occupied a central place in the upper tier of the altarpiece, have been ascribed to his son Carlo Caliari, called Carletto Veronese (see Marini and Falciani, op. cit.). Noting the higher quality of the paintings now in Zurich, Saints Peter and Paul and the present canvas, Marini suggested that this group of works was completed by Veronese before his death in 1588 and would have constituted the lower tier of the altarpiece. Marini further argued that the other canvases coming from Veronese’s workshop formed the upper tier, and might have been executed following the master’s death. Carl Strehlke has suggested an alternative reconstruction (private communication), noting that it is more likely that the four Doctors of the Church would have been grouped together – whether in the upper or lower tier would have been determined by the dedication of the church or chapel in which the altarpiece was placed – while the other tier would have consisted of, from left to right, a missing saint, Saints Peter, Paul and Anthony Abbot. The Risen Christ presumably stood at the centre of the upper tier, flanked by pairs from one or the other of the groups of saints, while the missing central canvas of the lower tier remains unidentified. Strehlke further notes that each section of the altarpiece would have been painted separately and then the pictures would have been assembled into the framing of the complex, regardless of when or by whom the individual canvases were painted.
We are grateful to Xavier F. Salomon for endorsing the attribution to Paolo Veronese, based on first-hand knowledge of this and the other pictures from the series (private communication, May 2025).
This canvas by Paolo Veronese originally belonged to a group of paintings depicting saints and the Risen Christ, all standing in identical fictive architectural niches, first connected together by Mina Gregori in 1960, when two of the canvases were exhibited at the Circolo Borghese e della Stampa in Florence. The paintings seem to have formed part of a two-tiered altarpiece, the reconstruction of which was proposed by Paola Marini in 2005 (op. cit.). Although the altarpiece is not documented and its original location remains an open question, it might have been intended for a church in the artist’s native Verona. The archaic two-tiered format persisted there well into the sixteenth century, as can be seen in an altarpiece of 1552 by Veronese’s master, Antonio Badile, for the confraternity of SS. Quattro Coronati in San Pietro Incarnario, the surviving elements of which are in the Museo di Castelvecchio, Verona. Other canvases belonging to Veronese's altarpiece complex include Saints Gregory the Great and Jerome in Zurich, Kunsthaus (figs. 1 and 2), which have slightly smaller dimensions and may have been cropped; Saints Peter and Paul (Alana Collection), and Saints Ambrose, Augustine and the Risen Christ (all untraced). Except for the two paintings now in Zurich, which were seen by Gustav Waagen in the W.E. Lake collection and were exhibited at the Royal Academy, London, in 1895, the paintings were in the same Neapolitan collection in the eighteenth century and subsequently remained together in a private collection, Florence.
Although there are variations in quality among paintings in the set, Saint Anthony Abbot is attributable to Paolo Veronese himself. Saints Ambrose and Augustine appear to be by a hand in the workshop of Veronese and these, together with the Risen Christ which would have occupied a central place in the upper tier of the altarpiece, have been ascribed to his son Carlo Caliari, called Carletto Veronese (see Marini and Falciani, op. cit.). Noting the higher quality of the paintings now in Zurich, Saints Peter and Paul and the present canvas, Marini suggested that this group of works was completed by Veronese before his death in 1588 and would have constituted the lower tier of the altarpiece. Marini further argued that the other canvases coming from Veronese’s workshop formed the upper tier, and might have been executed following the master’s death. Carl Strehlke has suggested an alternative reconstruction (private communication), noting that it is more likely that the four Doctors of the Church would have been grouped together – whether in the upper or lower tier would have been determined by the dedication of the church or chapel in which the altarpiece was placed – while the other tier would have consisted of, from left to right, a missing saint, Saints Peter, Paul and Anthony Abbot. The Risen Christ presumably stood at the centre of the upper tier, flanked by pairs from one or the other of the groups of saints, while the missing central canvas of the lower tier remains unidentified. Strehlke further notes that each section of the altarpiece would have been painted separately and then the pictures would have been assembled into the framing of the complex, regardless of when or by whom the individual canvases were painted.
We are grateful to Xavier F. Salomon for endorsing the attribution to Paolo Veronese, based on first-hand knowledge of this and the other pictures from the series (private communication, May 2025).