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Wikimedia Commons · Public domain · Hover to magnify, click for fullscreen
Original filePM 134173 E Nukerke
The painting depicts Saint Anthony the Great as an elderly, bearded man wearing a brown monastic habit. He stands prominently in the center, gazing upward toward the heavens, with his left foot resting firmly on the back of a hunched, humanoid devil who has goat-like ears and a muscular torso. A scroll with indecipherable text is draped over a stone ledge to the saint's left. To the left of the figures, a pig—Anthony's traditional attribute—is shown in profile grazing on the ground. The background consists of a shadowed wooded landscape with a small stream flowing through the trees, rendered in muted earth tones and greens.
The depiction of Saint Anthony the Great (c. 251–356 AD) is rooted in the hagiographical tradition established by Athanasius of Alexandria, emphasizing the saint's ascetic struggles against demonic temptation in the Egyptian desert. The presence of the pig is a medieval and post-medieval iconographic addition, often associated with the Order of Hospitallers of St. Anthony, who were permitted to let their pigs roam freely.
Text on the scroll is present but indistinct.
Athanasius of Alexandria
Author of the 'Life of Saint Anthony', which popularized the account of the saint's desert temptations.
Object
oil painting
canvas
Baroque
Flemish
religious
Digital Source
Wikimedia Commons · Public domain
410 × 600 px
Linked Data
AI AI-cataloged fields generated by gemini-3.1-flash-lite-preview on April 20, 2026. Getty identifiers are AI-inferred and may require verification.