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Lions Help Saint Anthony Bury Saint Paul by The Limbourg Brothers, 1405–1408/9, The Metropolitan Museum of Art, The Cloisters
The Book of Hours

Lions Help Saint Anthony Bury Saint Paul

Herman, Paul, and Jean de Limbourg (Franco-Netherlandish, active in France by 1399–1416)

1405–1408/9 · Ink, tempera, and gold leaf on vellum · The Metropolitan Museum of Art, The Cloisters

For Saint Anthony of Egypt · 17 January

Sizes

image 7.2×10 in on a 8×10 in sheet

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Dots per inch: how many pixels of the museum’s file go into each inch of paper. Our floor is 240 for sheets up to 20 inches, 180 up to 36 inches and 120 beyond, because a larger print is seen from further away. We never offer a sheet below the floor, and the number on each size is the one you receive.

Hahnemühle Photo Rag, 308 gsm cotton rag · pigment inks · printed to order

Printed to order · the whole painting, never cropped · if it arrives damaged, we replace it

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About this painting

Three lions come to the grave, and Saint Anthony holds the pale body of Saint Paul against his own. By legend, the Met says, Anthony had no tools to dig, so the lions came to help. The Met's commentary sets the pallor of Paul's corpse against Anthony's ruddy face, and Wendy A. Stein asks us to look closely at the sorrowing face and the limp, pale body. The Limbourg brothers gave the story a self-contained quire of eight pages, its captions drawing, it seems, on Jerome's life of Paul, the first ever written. Paul's tunic, the caption says, was made of palms; here it is braided like a basket.

Sources: The Metropolitan Museum of Art, The Art of Illumination, folio 193v; read 2026-09-24 · Wendy A. Stein, 'Saints Paul and Anthony', The Art of Illumination blog, The Metropolitan Museum of Art, 26 May 2010; read 2026-09-24

Pray with this every day  ›
The Record
Date 1405–1408/9
Collection The Metropolitan Museum of Art, The Cloisters
Subject The Book of Hours
Season Ordinary Time
Master 3,631 px
License PD/CC0
Attribution The Metropolitan Museum of Art, The Cloisters · 54.1.1a, b

The original, as its museum records it

Artist Herman, Paul, and Jean de Limbourg (Franco-Netherlandish, active in France by 1399–1416)
Date 1405–1408/9
Medium Ink, tempera, and gold leaf on vellum
Dimensions 9 3/8 x 6 5/8 in. (23.8 x 16.8 cm)
Holding The Metropolitan Museum of Art, The Cloisters · 54.1.1a, b

Every line above is reproduced from the holding institution’s own catalogue entry, which is linked. Where their title, date or attribution differs from ours, theirs is the one printed here.

The file this print is made from

Source DP281427.jpg
Master 3,631 px on the long edge
Rights PD/CC0 — the photograph as well as the painting
At a glance
ArtistHerman, Paul, and Jean de Limbourg (Franco-Netherlandish, active in France by 1399–1416)
Date1405–1408/9
MuseumThe Metropolitan Museum of Art, The Cloisters
Accession54.1.1a, b
MediumInk, tempera, and gold leaf on vellum
Dimensions9 3/8 x 6 5/8 in. (23.8 x 16.8 cm)
Sheet sizes8×10 in, 11×14 in
Provenance of the file
Held byThe Metropolitan Museum of Art, The Cloisters · 54.1.1a, b the museum’s record
Source fileThe Met’s own open-access file
Licencepublic domain; the file released under CC0
Master2,604 × 3,631 px, the file our printer receives
ChainTaken from The Met’s own open-access file; held as our print master.

The sheets

8×10 in sheet 8×10 in · image 7.2×10 in · archival margin · 363 dpi
11×14 in sheet 11×14 in · image 10×14 in · archival margin · 259 dpi

Printed on demand. Public-domain masterwork, reproduced from a 3,631 px master of the original. The whole image is printed — never cropped to fit the sheet — so every sheet carries an archival margin, and the dimensions and resolution listed above are the ones you receive.