For more on this panel, see Sano di Pietro, Saint Anthony Abbot Tormented by Demons.
The panel support, of a vertical wood grain with a moderate convex warp, has been thinned to a depth of 12 millimeters. It comprises two planks: a main plank on the left, measuring 33 centimeters wide at the bottom and 34 centimeters wide at the top, and a narrower plank at the right, measuring 6 centimeters wide at the bottom and 5 centimeters wide at the top. A cradle applied in 1928 by Charles Durham was removed during a structural treatment by George Bisacca at the Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York, in 1998, as were marouflaged inserts, 6 centimeters wide across the full length of the panel at the top and 7 centimeters wide at the bottom. These were replaced with aged poplar, oriented in the same grain direction as the main panel. Capping strips of aged poplar 7 millimeters wide were applied along all four edges, those at top and bottom again oriented in the same grain direction as the main panel. The seam between the planks and a deep split 19 centimeters from the right edge (viewed from the front) were repaired with inserted wedges of aged poplar: both are visible as breaks in the paint surface, the latter resulting in minor paint loss in the landscape above the head of Saint Anthony. A barb of gesso and paint is visible along the top edge of the picture field only. The gilding of the saint’s halo is worn. The paint surface is, in general, beautifully preserved, although lightly abraded from a vigorous cleaning in 1950–52. Irregular losses occur along the left edge, especially in the side of the chapel in the foreground. These were repainted by Mark Aronson in a cleaning of 1999, at which time it was decided not to remove the reinvented strip of sky concealing a total loss approximately 4 centimeters wide and following the curve of the painted horizon that had been added in 1952 (fig. 1).
