The Temptation of St. Anthony
Lucas Cranach (German, 1472–1553)
1506
- Medium
- woodcut
- Classification
- Culture
- Germany
- Museum
- Cleveland Museum of Art, Prints
- Credit line
- Dudley P. Allen Fund
- Rights
- Public domain (CC0), as the museum states it.
- Who can see it
- Teens profiles and older: its subject is for older viewers (war, death, the Passion, drink or the like). How works are placed
View at the Cleveland Museum of Art
About this work
The group of demonic figures attacking Saint Anthony was inspired by the Martin Schongauer engraving of the same subject from about 1475, though the extensive landscape is a fine example of Cranach's individual style. The Temptation of Saint Anthony has possible connections to the Chancellor of Wittenberg University, Goswin von Orsoy (1450-1515), who was also the preceptor of the Antonite monastery at nearby Lichtenburg. The group of buildings in the scene may represent this monastery, which was later destroyed; the monastery also owned a chapel in Wittenberg where there was an altarpiece of Saint Anthony.
