The Funeral of Saint Anthony Abbot

In 1817 the 14th Duke of Alba bought a small panel in Florence for 448 francs. It is about the size of a sheet of paper, 19.7 by 29.3 centimetres, and for most of its life it was catalogued as the work of Fra Angelico's school rather than of the man himself. Study and restoration at the Prado changed that, and the museum now gives it to Angelico, dating it 1426 to 1430. It came here in 2016 as a personal gift from the 19th Duke, made alongside the museum's 18-million-euro purchase of the family's Virgin of the Pomegranate. The scene is the funeral of Anthony Abbot, the Egyptian hermit whose example stands behind monastic life. The body lies on a red-draped bier with a bishop and a crowd of monks around it, one friar face down on the ground, and the saint's soul already carried up into a gold almond of light above the rooftops. No altarpiece by Angelico dedicated to Anthony Abbot is documented, so whatever this strip once ran along is unknown.