Der Heilige Antonius, betend vor dem verstorbenen hl. Paulus, Salemer Altaer Tafel 1

The Salem Altar panel depicting Anthony visiting the dying Paul the Hermit belongs to Schaffner's work for the Cistercian monastery of Salem on Lake Constance, one of the wealthiest religious houses in southwestern Germany. The subject — Anthony's miraculous journey guided by a centaur and satyr to find the aged hermit Paul — derives from Jerome's Vita Pauli and was a favourite of hermit-order patrons emphasising solitary contemplation. Schaffner painted this panel in his mature phase, when his figures had grown more monumental under the influence of both Dürer's woodcut series and Italian engravings filtering through Augsburg.

The landscape background adopts the steeply rising terrain typical of German panel painting, setting gnarled trees and distant blue hills behind the two saints. Schaffner models flesh with warm ochre underlayers, building shadow with hatched glazes that recall the print culture informing his style.