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The panel originates from Szepesbéla.
The Danube School of painting, very influential in the first decades of the sixteenth century, dominated the art of Bavaria and Austria along the banks of the river Danube, an area easily accessible from the Szepes region. The distance is not great, even if expressed in kilometres, and appears still less so when we consider that trade and cultural relations were very close between the inhabitants of the areas at that time. It is, therefore, a striking fact that the influence of the Danube School is scarcely discernible in the development of painting in the Szepes region - at least as evidenced by the works that have come down to us. It did however help to stimulate interest in landscape painting, as may be seen in this work with its towering rocks, forests and scrub, and the castle with bastions and gate-houses in the background. It is a deserted landscape, by no means as desolate as the deserts of Egypt but as in Flemish models, uninhabited apart from the central figure. But while late medieval painters were content to exclude the human figure their landscapes, they depicted buildings and townscapes in the background. (There are landscapes without buildings in some work by members of the Danube School.) The manner in which the figure and the landscape - especially the foliage of the trees - are painted, links this picture with the panel from the high altar in Lőcse; in fact certain parts of the castle appear in practically the same form in both pictures.
The panel represents a scene from the legend of St. Anthony, depicting him when he has resisted all temptation. Christ's blessing in recognition of the sufferings endured by the Saint, is inscribed on the banderole, the words being taken from the most famous medieval collection of lives of the saints called the "Legenda aurea". Translated into English it reads: "As you have held out manfully, I will make your name known to the whole world." It is interesting that the Saviour emerging from the clouds gives His blessing with His left hand. This somewhat awkward gestures is evidently a make-do solution: Christ being in the left corner of the picture, He would have covered himself by rising His right hand.
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