Saint Anthony

Art Historical Context

Balthasar Moncornet’s engraving *Saint Anthony*, created between 1551 and 1600, offers a fine example of how printmaking helped spread religious imagery across Europe during the late Renaissance. As an engraving, the work would have been produced by incising lines into a metal plate, allowing for multiple impressions that could reach wide audiences beyond the church or court. This medium played a vital role in making devotional subjects accessible to everyday viewers. Saint Anthony, a figure often associated with temptation and spiritual endurance, appears here in a format suited to personal ...

About the Artist

Balthasar Moncornet

Balthasar Moncornet (c. 1600–1668) was a French engraver and print publisher who became one of the most prolific portrait printmakers of seventeenth-century France. Born in Rouen, he established a highly productive workshop in Paris on the Rue Saint-Jacques, the traditional center of the French print trade. Despite being blind in one eye — a remarkable handicap for an engraver — Moncornet produced...