Puppet of St. Anthony

This hollow puppet is part of a series that acted out the Temptation of St. Anthony at the Théâtre du Vrai Guignolet in the Champs-Elysées Gardens in Paris. The Temptation was a very popular play that had multiple versions but that always followed the same framework: the saint's humility and conversions provoke the anger of the king of hell, who then tries to corrupt the old man through various temptations, beginning with lust, offered up by the queen of hell herself. In the face of the saint's unshakable constancy, Satan ends up sending a troop of demons to manhandle the old man, wreck his hermitage and set fire to his pig's tail. But St. Anthony's patience moved God to send his angels to put an end to his torment.

This play was put on by puppet shows since the 19th century, along with Puss in Boots and Little Red Riding Hood. It is part of a very long tradition, taking up the story of Anthony the hermit, written in the 4th century. The show had a moral that it inherited from the original Christian legend: endurance and continence in the face of the temptations that divert people from the path of God are always rewarded. But it also added a lot of details drawn from popular traditions about St. Anthony, all of which in a fantastic, spectacular atmosphere (firecrackers were sometimes attached to the tail of a real piglet during the play) similar to the clowning of Carnival. In fact, St. Anthony and his adventures occupy an important place in many Carnivals, where they symbolize the victory over winter, death and demons.