The Triptych of Temptation of St. Anthony is an oil painting on wood panels by the Early Netherlandish painter Hieronymus Bosch, dating from around 1501.

In fact, the painting was documented as part of the collections in the Royal Palace of Lisbon in 1872 March from Spain, and in 1911, it was donated it to its current museum.

The work tells symbolically the story of the mental and spiritual torments endured by St. Anthony Abbot throughout his life.

The sources for the subjects were Athanasius of Alexandria's Life of St. Anthony,[1] which had been popularized in Flanders by Pieter van Os, and Jacopo da Varazze's Golden Legend.

Below, is the saint's grotto (or a brothel), carved within a hill in the shape of a man on all fours, whose backside forms the entrance.

In the foreground is a tired-out Anthony, supported after the fall by a monk and a layman; the latter has been traditionally identified as Bosch himself.

At the center is the saint in contemplation, with a blessing hand pointing at his small cell inside a ruined tower where a miniature Christ appears to point at the Crucifix, to suggest the true sacrifice in reply to the profanatory mass celebrated by demons and priestess at his left.

A black-dressed singer has a pig face and a little owl (an allegory of heresy) above his head, while a crippled man is going to receive the communion.

The demon group at the left, including a woman wearing a helmet resembling a hollow tree, may symbolize the bloody violence.

The large fruit can be interpreted as a mandrake apple and the man wielding the sword can be seen as a reference to the uprooting ceremony.

The two figures riding the fish in the sky had, according to the legend, obtained the capability to fly by the Devil in order to partake in Witches' Sabbaths.

[1] The right panel portrays Christ Carrying the Cross in the background, while the foreground depicts the two thieves, one confessing and the other refusing to convert.