Saint Anthony Abbot

Download1559 × 4000 px View on a wall Edit

Artist: Fra Angelico (Italian, 1390–1455)
Medium: Tempera on panel
Size: 39.4 × 14 cm (15 1/2 × 5 1/2 in.); Framed: 70.5 × 42.6 × 7 cm (27 3/4 × 16 3/4 × 2 3/4 in.)
Museum: Art Institute of Chicago
Rights: CC0 — no rights reserved

This panel painting represents Saint Anthony Abbot, a fourth-century Egyptian hermit considered the founder of Christian monasticism. It was part of a major altarpiece commissioned by Cosimo de’ Medici for the high altar of the church of San Marco in Florence, a Dominican convent where the artist himself resided after he became a friar.

Before the altarpiece was dismantled by the early 19th century, the central image was a large panel representing the Virgin Mary and infant Jesus with saints; below this a horizontal predella featured episodes from the lives of the Medici family’s patron saints, Cosmas (Cosimo’s namesake) and Damian. At each side were upright registers with 10 panels depicting individual saints standing on clouds, including this painting.

Text: Art Institute of Chicago, CC BY 4.0.