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Lot Essay
The Temptation of Saint Anthony is considered the earliest composition in which Bruegel takes the guise of a 'second Bosch', in the mid-16th century revival of its style, and made the preparatory drawing (Ashmolean Museum, Oxford; inv. no. I 302) for this engraving. The publisher was as always Hieronymous Cock in Antwerp. In the following year, the artist and his enterprising publisher went one step further in the appropriation of Bosch's manner and name by adding Bosch's name to the print Big Fish eat Little Fish (see following lot), suggesting that he and not Bruegel was the inventor of the composition.
False advertising aside, Bruegel quite obviously took inspiration from the works of Hieronymus Bosch (circa 1450-1516). Apart from the general, phantasmagorical aspect of the composition and its many bizarre creatures and structures - half beast, half thing - the present engraving shows specific similarities, from example between the central giant head surmounted by a fish in the engraving and Bosch's drawing of the Tree Man in Vienna (Albertina, inv. no. 7876).
The joy of this engraving, as with Bosch's nightmarish visions, lies in its complexity and entertaining, grotesque spectacles, which the protagonist of the scene, Saint Anthony, relegated to the lower left corner, is trying his best to ignore. The scene appears 'more like a battle, in which the human figures on the left vainly resist to the apocalyptic invasion of demonic monsters on the right' while the Saint's 'example offers a greater hope of salvation: he is able to resist these temptations by turning his back on worldly things'. (Bassens, p. 124).
False advertising aside, Bruegel quite obviously took inspiration from the works of Hieronymus Bosch (circa 1450-1516). Apart from the general, phantasmagorical aspect of the composition and its many bizarre creatures and structures - half beast, half thing - the present engraving shows specific similarities, from example between the central giant head surmounted by a fish in the engraving and Bosch's drawing of the Tree Man in Vienna (Albertina, inv. no. 7876).
The joy of this engraving, as with Bosch's nightmarish visions, lies in its complexity and entertaining, grotesque spectacles, which the protagonist of the scene, Saint Anthony, relegated to the lower left corner, is trying his best to ignore. The scene appears 'more like a battle, in which the human figures on the left vainly resist to the apocalyptic invasion of demonic monsters on the right' while the Saint's 'example offers a greater hope of salvation: he is able to resist these temptations by turning his back on worldly things'. (Bassens, p. 124).