St. Anthony the Abbot

The Egyptian hermit St. Anthony Abbot is pictured in this private devotional painting with his common attributes: a bell and also a tau, or a cane with a T-shaped handle. His eyes stare at the ground as a gesture of repentance, and his arms are folded across his chest like those of a meek beggar. The pose is one of Christian humility.

Little is known about the origins of this small work, except that it must date from early in Correggio’s career, probably 1514–16. In the nineteenth century it entered the picture gallery of one of Naples’s most historic churches, the Girolamini. The art historian Adolfo Venturi recognized it as a Correggio in 1901, and it has remained in the master’s corpus ever since.