I remember once visiting the Musées royaux des Beaux-Arts de Belgique in Brussels and enjoying the fantastic Bosch painting of the Temptation of Saint Anthony. Here the landscape is a backdrop to the usual Bosch scenes of weirdness and horror, although as can be seen below (in another version of the painting now in Lisbon), there are intriguing misty details in the distance, where modest windmills and strange temples exist side by side. But this isn’t the only Temptation in the museum. You also come upon another painting of the same subject by an artist of the ‘Southern Netherlandish School’, which is as different as could be: an intimate rustic landscape where St Anthony seems at first glance to be sitting have a quiet read. I’m just as interested (if not more interested) in this painting, but have never been able to find out anything about it, other than the basic fact that it is painted on wood and is 24 x 16.5 cm in size.
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