An impressive and fascinating depiction of the Temptation of Saint Anthony, after the famous 1635 etching by Jacques Callot. The scene is a veritable phantasmagoria, with hundreds of arresting details both humorous and horrific. The massive figure of Satan dominates the scene, exploding across the sky like a giant simian-avian hybrid. His leg is chained, no doubt keeping him in the Pit above which he rises. His bearded and heavily eyebrowed face gleams with wickedness, and his jaws disgorge a swarm of demonic imps, which flit above the scene accosting each other, and the hapless Saint Anthony. The Hallow himself, dragged from his cave, can be seen in the bottom right corner, tormented and beaten by various devils as he raises the Holy Cross. The Satanic retinue that surrounds him is of form and action of the most diverse and perverse. Winged sprites with arrows, spears, and barbs violate their fellows in all imaginable ways, while others fling fire at the ruinous structures they inhabit. Figures part animal and part machine belch weapons of war, serpents, and brimstone, while others play discordant music on instruments blown by both head and tail. The Temptation of Saint Anthony is one of the most well represented devotional scenes in the history of Western art, and a particularly popular subject in print making. Saint Anthony (AD 251-356) was a Christian monk, born in the Hellenised Egyptian village of Coma. He is often referred to as the 'first monk' as tradition holds him to have been the first saint to lead an ascetic life in the wilderness. According to Athanasius of Alexandria, the main source responsible for popularising St Anthony's life and deeds, the saint experienced a number of apocalyptic visions while residing as a hermit in the Eastern Desert. Because of the fantastical elements of Anthony's visions, the 'Temptation' became an excellent outlet for an artist's inventiveness and imagination. Some of the most famous examples are the woodcuts of Dürer, Lucas Cranach, and Heinrich Aldegrever, and their legacy can clearly be seen in some of the more esoteric works of artists such as Hieronymus Bosch, Brueghel, Callot, and Hieronymus Cock. Ex. Col.: Naudet (Lugt 1937)