This is the third panel of the triptych of the life of St. Anthony that I wrote about two posts previous. The painting belongs to the National Gallery of Art in Washington.
This is a really fine example of the Gothic practice of representing the same character in different points of time within the same image. Saint Anthony can be seen first entering this landscape in the upper left hand side of the picture wearing a monk’s robe and carrying a traveler’s staff. Later, around the bend, he has an improbable meeting with a Centaur, and lastly in the bottom of the composition, in front of St. Paul’s cave, the two saints embrace in greeting.
[Top of the post: The Meeting of Saint Anthony and Saint Paul, c. 1430/1435, Master of the Osservanza (Sano di Pietro?), National Gallery of Art in Washington]
Aletha Kuschan's Weblog 
Your comments throughout the weblog are interesting and insightful. I am interested in paintings like this one and Masaccio’s “The Tribute Money” that repeat a character in the same image. Can you think of other examples? Thanks,
Oscar
Thank you, Oscar. That feature of narration in a painting was often used in early Renaissance painting and I believe it comes from an earlier tradition in the Gothic. I’m sorry that I don’t know enough about that period of art to come up with many examples. It may be a natural outgrowth of the manuscript tradition where visual story telling illustrates and parallels a text.
There’s a fellow who does a blog on art history who might know. He might be better able to answer your question. Here’s a link: https://eclecticlight.co/2018/01/01/next-year-in-paintings-tintoretto-klimt-and-more/