The Temptation of St. Anthony

Hieronymus Bosch

An item at Metropolitan Museum of Art

In the Temptation of St. Anthony, the saint kneels under a lean-to on the right while a wild, monster-filled scene takes place before him. While the inscription at the bottom center of the print states HIERONIMVS BOS INVE, normally meant to indicate that Hieronymus Bosch was the designer of the image, this scene, produced long after the artist's death, is loosely based on Hieronymus Bosch's painted triptych of the same subject in Lisbon (Museum de Arte Antiga). Hieronymus Cock, the publisher of the print, produced numerous prints after Bosch at a time when the artist's name and imagery was still very popular, given the many paintings and prints created at the time that reproduced or spun off his imagery.

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