Artwork · 15th century · Sano di Pietro

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Saint Anthony the Abbot in the Wilderness

Sano di Pietroca. 1440Tempera and gold on wood47.6 × 34.6 cm

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At a glance

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Saint Anthony, an old monk with a long white beard, stands alone with his staff on an empty hillside where only bare trees grow.
Painted around 1440 by the Sienese artist Sano di Pietro, in tempera and gold on a wooden panel.
On a panel only about 48 by 35 centimeters, he packs in a saint, wild animals, a church and a glowing sky, like a page from a storybook.

Reading the picture

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Tap a number on the painting to jump to its note, or a close-up to see that spot in the whole picture.

Zoom in on Saint Anthony at the right. Behind his head is a halo of gold leaf, pressed with a pattern. Under a black hood, his white beard flows down over a dusty pink cloak. He holds a staff with a T-shaped top. Both palms are raised and he looks down, as if he has just stopped short at something.
In the lower left corner, beside a tree trunk, a gray rabbit crouches. Each tiny hair is drawn with a fine brush. Its round eye is open and it faces toward the saint. The wilderness is almost empty of people, yet small creatures are hiding everywhere.
Look at the middle of the hill. On the reddish ground above, a stag with branching antlers lies down to rest. On the green slope below, a spotted deer lowers its head to graze. Every tree around them is bare. The animals do not seem bothered that a saint is passing by.
Zoom in on the pink church beyond the hill. It has a tiled roof and a pointed bell tower, with dark cypress trees behind. On a distant hilltop to the left stand the broken stumps of a ruined tower. The world where people live feels far away from the path the saint is walking.
Zoom in on the sky at the upper right. Between stripes of red and blue cloud, a band of gold shines. This is not yellow paint but real gold, used to catch the light of the low sun. Just below it, a pale, distant mountain peak peeks out.

When it was painted

Around 1440, Sano di Pietro was in his mid-thirties. Born in Siena, he spent his whole working life there and turned out a great many altarpieces. But the name attached to this painting comes with a long backstory.

For generations, art historians grouped a set of similar pictures under a made-up name: the Osservanza Master. The name comes from a three-part altarpiece in the church of the Osservanza, just outside Siena. Some scholars believe this unnamed master was simply the young Sano di Pietro, and The Metropolitan Museum of Art now presents the panel as his. Others have pointed to Sassetta or other Sienese painters, so the question is still open.

The panel is one of eight scenes from Saint Anthony's life. The rest of the series is now scattered among museums in Berlin, Washington and New Haven. Anthony's story spread through a biography written in the fourth century by Athanasius. In it, Anthony, walking in the desert, comes across gold lying in his path and hurries past as if it were fire.

Here is the twist. This painting once showed that very heap of gold, on the ground near the rabbit. At some point the gold was scraped off, and today it is gone. The panel is also known as Saint Anthony Abbot Tempted by a Heap of Gold.

The panel later belonged to the Lehman family of New York, and in 1975 it came to the Met with the Robert Lehman Collection. Now look again at where the saint gazes, hands raised. The gold is gone, but his startled gesture remains.

The painter

Sano di Pietro

1405–1481

All paintings by Sano di Pietro →

Saint Anthony the Abbot in the Wilderness

Questions to think about

Look for itBesides the saint, how many living animals can you find in this wilderness?
Why?The saint raises his hands and stops, but nothing is visible in front of him. What do you think the painter wanted to suggest?
What about you?Anthony gave away what he owned and walked into the quiet. Do we also need times when we step back from shopping, screens and noise, and what would that look like for you?

Same period