Temptation of St. Anthony (recto); Fantastic Landscape (verso)

Jan Wellens de Cock

An item at Metropolitan Museum of Art

This drawing depicts motifs associated with representations of the Temptation of Saint Anthony. The bearded saint kneels in prayer before a rock supporting a book, resistant to the torments and temptations offered by the surrounding figures. A couple approach Anthony from the left, while a variety of demons proceed past a tree toward him from the right. Though the image of the saint, his tormentors, and the burning building behind are in proper proportion to each other, they are not contiguous. The prominent, undefined areas of empty space on the sheet and the lack of relationship between the foreground figures and background, in particular, suggest that these motifs were not conceived in preparation for another work but were copied from an unknown source. The drawing style is consistent with works associated with Jan Wellens de Cock, an Antwerp-based painter and draftsman who had close ties to the Mannerist school in the early sixteenth century. The arrangement of motifs on the Museum's sheet is similar in conception to a 1522 woodcut by de Cock depicting the same subject.

Drawings and Prints

An exhibit at Metropolitan Museum of Art

The Department’s vast collection of works on paper comprises approximately 21,000 drawings, 1.2 million prints, and 12,000 illustrated books created in Europe and the Americas from about 1400 to the present day. Since its foundation in 1916, the Department has been committed to collecting a wide range of works on paper, which includes both pieces that are incredibly rare and lauded for their aesthetic appeal, as well as material that is more popular, functional, and ephemeral. The broad scope of the department’s collecting encourages questions of connoisseurship as well as those pertaining to function and context, and demonstrates the vital role that prints, drawings, and illustrated books have played throughout history.

Metropolitan Museum of Art