Gilded and polychrome painted carved wood... - Lot 256 - Pousse-Cornet

Gilded and polychrome painted carved wood figure of Saint Anthony the Great. Germany or Austria, 16th century. Depicted aged and bearded, wearing the robe de bure and hood of the Antonine Order, flanked at his feet by a pig; resting on a fully carved base; accidents and restorations. H.: 102.5 cm; L.: 30 cm. Provenance: French private collection, in the same family for several generations. Misses and cracks on the base. Saint Anthony the Great, 3rd-century Egyptian hermit. On the death of his parents, he distributed his possessions to the poor and retired to the Egyptian desert to live out his faith in poverty and chastity. He is generally regarded as the founder of monasticism. After resisting the devil's attacks and triumphing as Christ, he spent the rest of his life teaching the disciples who visited him to hear him preach and join in his prayers. On his death, his relics were first transferred to Constantinople, before moving to an abbey in the Dauphiné region in the mid-11th century, where they became known as Saint-Antoine-en-Viennois. It was around this place that the Antonine community was organized, erected as a religious hospital order by Pope Boniface VIII in 1289, and specialized in caring for patients suffering from contagious diseases (plague, leprosy...). He is usually depicted aged and bearded, dressed in a gown and hood of the Antonine Order. Antony sometimes holds a Tau or a bell and is accompanied by a pig, as in the sculpture shown here. The latter would allude both to the diabolical desert boar that Antony domesticated and later became his most faithful companion, and to the pigs of his order. Our figure shows similarities with a sculpture in the Louvre (RF 4513) in the treatment of the beard, the face and certain folds of the robe. It depicts Saint Anthony, dates from around 1510-1515 and is thought to have come from the Carinthian region. Comparative bibliography: K. Clarck, Hall's Dictionary of subjects and symbols in Art, London, 1974, p. 21. A parcel-gilt polychrome wood figure of Saint Antony the Great, German or Austrian, 16th century Expert: Isabelle d'Amécourt