Studies of Saint Anthony and Monsters: The Louvre Sheet

Bearded hermits sit with open books while strange creatures occupy the spaces around them. A long-legged reader stands near a figure whose body seems covered with feathers. At the upper edge, a vessel carries an implausible passenger; near the bottom, another figure lies sideways in relation to the rest of the page. The drawing brings together several kinds of invention without arranging them into one continuous event.

This is the Louvre’s Croquis pour une tentation de saint Antoine, inventory INV 20871 recto, a sheet of studies associated with the Temptation of Saint Anthony. The reverse contains seven monster sketches, including a mounted lancer.^[1][2] Both faces belong to the same piece of paper, but their attribution records require separate attention. Looking at them together reveals a working resource more varied than a single preliminary design for a known painting.

At a Glance

• FrontStudies for a Temptation of Saint Anthony
• ReverseSeven sketches of monstrous animals
• Current museum artist headingHieronymus Bosch on both records; qualifications discussed below
• DateNo execution date specified in the current Louvre records
• MediumPen and brown ink on paper
• Dimensions20.6 × 26.3 cm
• CollectionMusée du Louvre, Département des Arts graphiques, Paris
• InventoryINV 20871 recto and verso
• Earlier collectionEverhard Jabach; entered the Cabinet du Roi in 1671

Annotated Details from Saint Anthony and Monsters: The Louvre Sheet

Both faces of Louvre INV 20871 are shown here. Repeated seated figures share the front with hybrid creatures, while the reverse contains further monster sketches.

Front: Saint Anthony and Monsters

Reverse: Further Monster Sketches

Details from SAINT ANTHONY AND MONSTERS: THE LOUVRE SHEET

Compare the separate inventions. The smaller reverse photograph is kept at its available native resolution.

Front: Saint Anthony and Monsters

1

The seated reader at the left

A haloed, bearded figure sits with an open book. Long strokes suggest a rough shelter or mound behind him.

2

Creatures along the upper edge

Human faces, beaks, limbs and long curved bodies occupy the top of the sheet. Some forms remain lightly outlined while others receive darker modelling.

3

The lower-right inventions

A small rider sits upon a four-legged hybrid beside another seated figure. Their outlines occupy separate areas of the paper rather than one continuous setting.

Reverse: Further Monster Sketches

4

The central hybrid

A long, pointed form carries a small upright figure. Curved outlines, legs and trailing extensions combine several different kinds of body.

5

The bird-like creature at the right

A large bird-like figure spreads its wings beside the fold in the paper. Stronger strokes define its feet and the lower edge of the body.

Image and detail crops: Wikimedia Commons source 1; Wikimedia Commons source 2 (public domain reproductions).

Seated Hermits and Repeated Gestures

The seated figures provide the most stable forms on the front. At the left, a bearded man occupies a small patch of ground with his knees drawn up beneath a long garment. Straight rays spread around his head. His book, bent arm and lowered gaze create a compact concentration of activity, quite different from the protruding limbs and faces nearby.

A related figure appears higher towards the right, seated on an irregular rocky form. Here the extended clothing spreads over a larger area, and the body has more room to settle into its support. The book rests across the lap. The two seated figures share a recognisable type while testing how its balance changes with the arrangement of knees, cloth and ground.

Other bearded figures remain more lightly indicated. One near the upper middle has a comparatively open outline; another at the right seems to lean towards the book. Their differences matter more than a search for exact duplication. The page allows a pose to be tried again with a slightly altered inclination of the head, a different fall of cloth or a shifted relationship between hand and book.

The radiating lines around some heads distinguish holy figures within the surrounding disorder. They do not, however, supply a complete narrative sequence. There is no border separating episodes, and the surrounding creatures do not all converge upon a single seated man. The saint’s composure can be considered alongside the monsters’ activity without pretending that the sheet records successive moments of one attack.

Readers Who Are Harder to Identify

Near the centre, a tall hooded figure holds an open book well below the face. The legs are exceptionally thin, ending in long, pointed feet. The large gap beneath the clothing changes the figure’s proportions: reading remains an ordinary action, but the body performing it becomes unfamiliar. A second reader further right has a straighter, more enclosed outline.

A shorter figure to the left of the central reader hunches inside a broad hood. Its face and hands are more heavily worked than much of the garment. The nearby books connect these figures visually with the hermits, but do not make every reader a saint. The sheet supplies similarities of action alongside differences in anatomy and expression.

Between these figures stands a compact creature with a human-looking face and a covering of short, downward strokes. Its wing-like projection and feathered surface interrupt the surrounding long robes. The resemblance between its hooded head and those of nearby readers makes the distinction between familiar clothing and fantastic body particularly unstable.

These relationships help explain the sheet’s fascination. An open book, hood or walking leg remains easy to recognise, but each can be attached to a body that changes its effect. The inventions depend on the viewer recognising ordinary forms before noticing how far their combinations depart from ordinary experience.

Monsters around the Margins

The upper part of the page contains more expansive distortions. At the left, a head is joined to small legs and a curling body. Nearby, another creature folds into a rounded form with projecting feet and a long extension from the face. Their curves differ from the sharper angles of the reading figures below.

Across the top, a figure occupies a narrow vessel with a raised, rounded structure behind it. A long shaft passes through the space above. The arrangement suggests travel or equipment without becoming a convincing boat on a described river. Its thin outlines leave room for several possible readings of how its parts connect.

At the upper right, a crawling creature approaches the edge and is abruptly cut off. At the bottom, a separately oriented figure and long shaft run almost horizontally across the page. To follow that little study, the viewer must mentally turn the paper. The change of direction is a reminder that the present upright view does not govern every mark on the sheet.

There is no need to turn these forms into a catalogue of named species or fixed symbols. A profile, foot, wing or stretched neck may provide a starting point for invention without becoming a disguised illustration of one proverb. Close description can preserve the uncertainty that makes the combinations active.

The Mounted Lancer on the Reverse

The reverse has more empty space and a particularly strong centre. A rider with a long lance sits on a fantastic mount whose body narrows into a tail. The mount’s raised head points towards the right, while another head bites or grips its trailing end at the left. That opposing action turns a simple forward movement into a self-contained struggle.

The rider’s helmet rises into an elaborate crest. The Bosch Research and Conservation Project, or BRCP, identifies a swan within it and compares its handling with a bird in another drawing.^[5] The crest adds a second animal to an already unstable mounted figure, turning equipment normally intended to identify or protect a rider into another opportunity for invention.

Around the lancer, the smaller studies take different approaches to bodily construction. Two crouching forms sit near the top. A feathered creature at the left combines long legs with a lowered head; a bird at the upper right spreads its wings. At the lower right, a long-snouted beast carries a rounded, spotted back above short limbs.

The seven sketches are not seven stages of a single action. Their separation permits the eye to compare how a body is assembled: where its head begins, how its weight reaches the ground, what happens when a wing or tail becomes disproportionately large. The reverse offers a more open arrangement than the front while continuing its interest in small transformations.

Pen Lines and Degrees of Finish

Both Louvre records identify pen and brown ink.^[1][2] The marks vary considerably in density. Some forms are held together by a few contours; others acquire shadows through closely repeated strokes. A dark face can sit beside an almost empty garment, allowing attention to gather unevenly within the same figure.

This variation is useful evidence of how the page works, but cannot name its maker on its own. A lightly indicated form may be an initial trial, a rapid notation or an intentionally abbreviated invention. A heavily hatched passage may represent greater attention without belonging to another hand. Differences of finish need comparison with the whole drawing before they become an attribution argument.

The paper’s marks also have different origins. The BRCP records trimming, stains, a tear and a later black border; on the reverse it notes glue residue and conspicuous coloured spots.^[5] These belong to the sheet’s physical history. They should not all be read as details of bodies, ground or costume.

Related to Saint Anthony, but Not a Proven Design for Lisbon

The repeated hermits explain the association with the Temptation of Saint Anthony. The BRCP suggests that the drawing developed forms for a treatment of that subject and compares its exploratory character with Bosch’s Lisbon triptych. It also states that the figures do not recur there directly.^[5] The connection concerns a field of invention rather than a complete composition transferred unchanged from paper to panel.

One comparison reaches beneath the painted surface. The BRCP relates the simply outlined creature at the lower right of the reverse to a beast in the Lisbon central panel’s underdrawing. That beast did not survive in the finished painting.^[5] The example connects two exploratory processes without making the Louvre creature a securely documented preparatory study.

That distinction matters when looking at the Lisbon Saint Anthony triptych. A drawing, an underdrawing and a completed painting can preserve related ideas at different stages of transformation. Similarity need not establish which came first, and the absence of an exact match need not make the drawing irrelevant. Here the evidence supports a relationship while leaving the precise sequence open.

A Discrepancy in the Reverse’s Attribution Record

The Louvre currently places Bosch at the head of both records. Its commentary on the reverse is more cautious: it discusses lower quality than the front and reports an attribution to a sixteenth-century imitator close to the Verbeeck family of Mechelen, assigning that view to the BRCP.^[2] The artist heading therefore does not contain the whole account.

There is a discrepancy with the published English BRCP entry. That text discusses both sides together as Bosch, comparing profile heads, pointed feet and the swan crest with other drawings it accepts. It also uses the reverse’s small beast in its comparison with the Lisbon underdrawing.^[5] The two accounts cannot be presented as one agreed judgement.

The distinction should remain visible without giving the reverse to a particular named Verbeeck. The Louvre records that family connection as an attributional comparison, while the English catalogue supplies an argument for Bosch. The paper’s two faces are physically connected; the assessment of their individual drawings remains a separate question.

Jabach, the Royal Collection and the Surviving Sheet

The drawing entered the Cabinet du Roi from Everhard Jabach’s collection in 1671. The Louvre describes it as belonging to the Rebut group, and records its later inclusion among drawings catalogued without an identified artist.^[1][2] Those classifications concern the sheet’s reception and organisation within collections. They do not describe the circumstances in which the figures were invented.

Old numbers and Jabach’s initials appear on the reverse. The BRCP distinguishes these collecting marks from the drawings themselves.^[5] They offer evidence of the object’s passage through hands and inventories, rather than an autograph naming the artist or a date written during its making.

The surviving sheet consequently rewards two kinds of attention. One follows the small choices preserved in the ink: a repeated seated body, a stretched foot, a head turned into a creature, a lance balanced over a fantastic mount. The other follows the object through trimming, mounting and changing attribution. Together they keep the studies open to examination while preserving the particular forms that first made them worth keeping.

References

1. Musée du Louvre: Studies for a Temptation of Saint Anthony, INV 20871 recto View source.
2. Musée du Louvre: Seven sketches of monstrous animals, INV 20871 verso View source.
3. BRCP Catalogue Raisonné (2016), object dates in catalogues 1, 2, 8, 15 and 20; catalogue 20 object metadata only for the Haywain comparison. View source
4. Staatliche Museen zu Berlin, 2016 exhibition wall texts, p. 3: approximate date of KdZ 549. View source
5. Bosch Research and Conservation Project: Catalogue Raisonné, 2016, entry 52, pages 556–557 View source.
6. Splash image, Hieronymus Bosch, Studies for a Temptation of Saint Anthony, pen and brown ink on paper, 20.6 × 26.3 cm, Musée du Louvre, Paris, INV 20871 recto. No execution date is specified in the current museum record. View source.