Deacon Saint, with Saint Anthony Abbot [right panel]

Martino di Bartolomeo

National Gallery of Art

Shown from the hips up, a pale-skinned, clean-shaven man holds a palm frond and a book in front of a gold background in this vertical painting, which has a triangular top. The person’s body is angled slightly to our left, but he looks off to our right from the corners of his brown eyes. He has a thin nose with a rounded tip, full pink lips, and a cleft in his round chin. His blond hair is cut into a ring around his head. His red robe is edged with gold and has rectangular gold patches on the sleeves. A white ruffled collar stands high but loosely around his neck. He braces the book, which has a slate-blue cover and canary-yellow pages, in one hand and holds a palm frond painted with yellow and spring green in the other. The man’s gold halo is punched into the gold background, and gilded molding creates a pointed arch over him. A second person, tiny in scale, is shown from the waist up in the tip of the panel. This man is balding with a long gray beard. He wears a muted purple robe under a black cloak. He holds a red book in one hand and a crutch with the other. He also looks off to our right, has a halo, and is in front of a gold background.