Castilian school; 16th century. "San Antón". Oil on panel.

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Old Masters

By Setdart Auction House

Jun 30, 2021

Set Reminder 2021-06-30 08:30:00 2021-06-30 08:30:00 America/New_York Bidsquare Bidsquare : Old Masters https://www.bidsquare.com/auctions/setdart-auction-house/old-masters-7134
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• Lot Description
  Castilian school; 16th century. "San Antón". Oil on panel. It presents important damages, repaints, and restorations. Frame of the twentieth century. Measures: 69 x 56 cm; 89 x 76 cm (frame). According to legend, St. Anton or St. Anthony Abbot was born in Egypt in 251, and at a very young age he retired to the solitude of the desert. Towards the end of his life, he visited Paul the hermit, superior of the anchorites of the Thebaid, miraculously fed by a crow that that day carried in its beak double ration of bread. Some time later, upon learning of the death of his venerable brother, he went to bury him with the help of two lions. In addition, in Catalonia, adventures and miracles were attributed to him, which served as a theme for Jaume Huguet for his altarpiece of Saint Anthony in Barcelona. The order of the Antonines was founded in the 11th century under the invocation of Saint Anthony as a holy healer. To maintain their encomiendas and hospitals, the Antonines dedicated themselves to raising pigs. They enjoyed the privilege of letting their animals, recognizable by the bell that jingled on their necks, roam the streets of the villages and the communal lands. Hence one of the most popular attributes of the saint is an animal with a cowbell around its neck, usually a pig. The extraordinary popularity of Saint Anthony is due, however, to his fame as a healer saint, and that is why he is represented here with a cane as an iconographic attribute. Usually, this saint is represented as a bearded old man wearing a hooded sackcloth, a common garment of the Antonines, although in this case he is presented with a youthful appearance. Apart from those already mentioned, another of his most frequent attributes is the tau. Due to the technical characteristics, such as the modeling of the forms, the tonalities used, the type of composition, and even the aesthetic details used for the creation of the nimbus of sanctity, the work presents great similarities with the Castilian school. At the beginning of the 16th century, Castile was one of the places most willing to receive the new humanist concepts of life and art due to its spiritual, political and economic conditions, although from the point of view of the plastic forms, its adaptation of those introduced by Italy was slower due to the need to learn the new techniques and to change the taste of the clientele. The work reflects perhaps better than other artistic fields this desire to return to the classical Greco-Roman world that exalts in his nudes the individuality of man creating a new style whose vitality exceeds the mere copy. Soon the anatomy, the movement of the figures, the compositions with a sense of perspective and balance, the naturalistic play of the folds, the classical attitudes of the figures began to be valued; but the strong Gothic tradition maintains the expressiveness as a vehicle of the deep spiritualistic sense that informs our best Renaissance paintings. This strong and healthy tradition favors the continuity of religious sculpture in polychrome wood that accepts the formal beauty offered by Italian Renaissance art with a sense of balance that avoids its predominance over the immaterial content that animates the forms.
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