SAINT ANTOINE LE GRAND Eastern France, late 15th... Lot 13

SAINT ANTOINE LE GRAND Eastern France, late 15th century Oak, polychrome H. 97 cm, W. 32 cm, D. 26 cm Saint Anthony, represented here as an abbot, holds the Rule of the Antonites open in his right hand while he leans with his left on a staff in the characteristic shape of a tau from which a rosary is suspended. He is wearing a cap and the tunic of the monks of his order under a hooded cloak. He is accompanied by a pig in flames. A bell hangs around his neck. The face of our saint has a beautiful harmony. The eyes are lowered under the forehead surrounded by small, deeply sculpted curls and the mouth disappears under an opulent hairline. The treatment of the beard, with its four long curls under a short moustache, shows the quality of the sculptor, which can also be seen in the position of the fingers holding the book or in the picturesque pig scratching its ear. The pig, whose bell indicates domesticity, only appeared in the iconography of the saint from the 13th century onwards, before becoming his attribute in the following century. This iconographic innovation is probably related to the practice of pig breeding among the Antonines, as suggested by the flaming terrace, symbol of the "fire of Saint Anthony". The regular monks of the Order of St. Anthony in Vienna used a meat diet to care for the sick. The cult of St. Anthony developed in the West in the 11th century, at the time of the arrival of his relics. His life was popularized by James of Voragine in the 13th century. There was a renewed interest in the anchorite saint, who became a healing saint over the centuries. This Eastern saint, born in Qeman in Egypt in 251, was called to lead an ascetic life. A victim of his own success, he abandoned his eremitical life for a community lifestyle and founded a first monastery at Mount Golzim where he died in 356. His relics were transferred to Constantinople and arrived in France, in an abbey that would soon take the title of Saint-Antoine-en-Viennois. The monks adopted the rule of the Antonites and formed a hospital order specializing in the treatment of contagious diseases such as the famous "St. Anthony's fire", caused by the ingestion of ergot rye. The presence of the relics of a new saint, reputed to be a miracle worker, encouraged an influx of pilgrims and patients suffering from the "Mal des Ardents", who were welcomed by a brotherhood of laymen in the House of Alms run by the Hospitaller friars, at the initiative of the local lords. The Antonine Order was officially established at the end of the 13th century by Boniface VIII, who confirmed its hospitable vocation. The Antonines, placed directly under papal authority and therefore free of care, opted for a diet based on pork and wine, requiring the rearing of pigs. Animal imagery thus retains the memory of an ancestral practice, which now seems to have fallen into disuse. Just as the tau stick, a crutch, evokes the commitment of the brothers to devote their lives to the infirm. No other representation of the saint is known in which the pig scratches its ear.