Cox-Rearick 1995
The Collection of Francis I: Royal Treasures (Janet Cox-Rearick) 1995
[Fonds Mercator Paribas, Antwerp, 1995, 494 pages]
According to the royal accounts the French king Francis I (1494-1547) purchased nine Flemish paintings from the Antwerp dealer Jean Dubois in December 1529, en l’un, les Fantosmes de sainct Anthoine [68]. So, one of these paintings was a Temptation of St Anthony. The inventory of royal paintings in the castle of Fontainebleau, drawn up by d’Estrechy in 1692, mentions: La Tentation de saint Antoine peinte sur bois [128-129]. According to the author this latter painting must have been a Bosch composition, of which Francis I also owned a tapestry version [68]. In an inventory of 1542 (nr. 283) we read: (…) cinq pièces de tappiserie de diverses histoires d’or d’argent et soye des devys de Hieronyme. For the subjects of these tapestries, Cox-Rearick refers to Schneebalg-Perelman 1971: 263-264. One of these subjects was a Temptation of St Anthony [367].
On which grounds Cox-Rearick identifies the representation on the 1542 tapestry with the representation on the 1692 panel remains unclear.
[explicit 10th February 2016]
