Saint Anthony among children
Saint Anthony of Padua is one of the few Saints in the Church who are represented with the baby Jesus in their arms. This chronicle originated from the Liber miracolorum (c. 1367), which describes a vision in which the Saint welcomed the Child Jesus in his arms, in May of 1231.
Based on this touching episode, there is this colored lithography, dated between 1900 and 1930, by an unknown author, from the European School.
Saint Anthony is once again depicted holding the Holy Child, but in this scene, there are other 7 children present surrounding them. A litte girl dressed in a checked green dress appropriate corresponding from said time period, offers three lilies to Saint Anthony. This is another traditional depiction of male saints, where they hold a bunch of this flower, which represents their sainctity. A second boy on the right side is waiting his turn to approach Anthony, and also offer him a bunch of lilies.
The scene places all of the characters in the middle of a fluorishing field, and the general composition recalls St. Mark's Gospel (10:14-15 ) "Let the children come to me".
This image is a public domain image, which means either that copyright has expired in the image or the copyright holder has waived their copyright. Franciscan Gallery charges for the access to high resolution copy of the image. Manually restoration was necessary in order to improve quality, without covering the original image.
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