La Tentation de Saint Antoine (The Temptation of St. Anthony)
19th century
Medium
Etching
Dimensions
Mount: 6 × 4 1/4 in. (15.3 × 10.8 cm) Sheet: 2 13/16 × 1 3/4 in. (7.2 × 4.5 cm)
Classification
Prints
Department
Drawings and Prints
Museum
Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York, NY
Credit
The J. B. Neumann Collection, Gift of Dr. Franz H. Hirschland, 1952
Accession Number
52.508.34
Art Historical Context
Rodolphe Bresdin'sLa Tentation de Saint Antoine (The Temptation of St. Anthony)* is a captivating 19th etching from the Metropolitan Museum of Art's Drawings and Prints collection. This intimate print, with a sheet size of just 2 13/16 × 1 3/4 inches (7.2 × 4.5 cm), depicts the legendary trials of Saint Anthony the Great the early Christian hermit who endured demonic temptations in the Egyptian desert. A enduring motif in Western art—from medieval manuscripts to Bosch's nightmarish visions—this subject allowed artists like Bresdin to explore themes of faith, isolation, and the supernatural. E...
About the Artist
Rodolphe Bresdin · 1822–1885
Rodolphe Bresdin (1822–1885) was a visionary French draughtsman, engraver, and lithographer whose fantastical imagery captured the empathy of rural poverty and the wild exuberance of the imagination. Born on August 12, 1822, in Montrelais near Le Fresne-sur-Loire in Brittany, he grew up in the Breton countryside amid its bardic folklore traditions before a family dispute left him homeless in Paris...