This picture is so freely and thinly painted that the artist’s underdrawing is visible especially in the background architecture. De Bles’s paintings seem to fall into two broad categories, some showing a high finish and brilliant colouring quite different from the second type of picture here, which is much more broadly painted.   The subject is taken from St. Matthew, ‘Again the Devil taketh him up into an exceeding high mountain, and sheweth him all the kingdoms of the world and the glory of them: and saith unto him, all these things will I give thee, if thou wilt fall down and worship me’. The artist depicts both events, the initial temptation bottom right and the diminutive figures on top of the mountain upper left completing the story.  The Devil appears as a humble monk but his cloven hoof is just visible under his habit. The idiosyncratic figures are probably by the artist himself.

‍