The Temptation of Saint Anthony

Private collection, Brussels. (Robert Frank, London, by 1935);[1] on consigment from 1937 with (M. Knoedler & Co., New York; joint purchase 1945 with (Pinakos [Rudolf Heinemann);[2] purchased 1950 by the Samuel H. Kress Foundation, New York;[3] gift 1952 by exchange to NGA. [1] The corresponding entry in _Exposition Universelle et Internationale de Bruxelles. Cinq Siècles d'Art_ (Brussels, 1935, no. 151, as Pieter Brueghel the Elder) states that before being acquired by Frank, the painting was in Brussels in the collection of an unnamed aristocrat. On the reverse are: an illegible stamp, possibly an Austrian customs stamp; a paper sticker, "Cinq Siècles d'Art (Bruxelles 1935)"; and a paper sticker, "Exposition De Van Eyck." [2] Knoedler commission book no. 3, p. 87, stock book no. 9, p. 96, and sales book no. 16, p. 251, no. A3127, M. Knoedler & Co. Records, Getty Research Institute copies NGA curatorial files). [3] Both The Baltimore Museum of Art, _An Exhibition of Paintings by Living Masters of the Past_, 1943, no. 9; and Colin Eisler, _Paintings from the Samuel H. Kress Collection: European Schools Excluding Italian_, Oxford, 1977, p. 95; list Countess Montblanc, Belgium, as owner of the painting, but this is otherwise unverified. See also The Kress Collection Digital Archive, https://kress.nga.gov/Detail/objects/2303.