The Temptations of Saint Anthony

Philip II gathered Bosch's paintings at the monastery of El Escorial, north-west of Madrid, and in 1839 much of what hung there came down to the new museum in the city. This narrow panel came with it. The Prado catalogues it as a 16th-century copy after Bosch, reduced from one wing of the great Temptation of Saint Anthony triptych that is now in Lisbon, with a few changes of its own along the way. The scene survives the shrinking. Demons carry the saint up through the air, and on the ground below he is ringed by grotesque monsters. The panel keeps the proportions of the wing it copies, 90 centimetres tall and 37 across. A second copy of the same wing is catalogued right beside it, and this one is kept in store rather than on the walls.