Compartment of an altarpiece with the temptations of Saint Anthony, from a church in the town of Santa Maria de Montbui (Central Catalonia). Painted by the Catalan artists Lluís Borrassà or Mateu Ortoneda in the early 15th century.
Notice how someone scratched off the woman's face (she's actually de Devil in disguise, look at her feet sticking out of the dress!). That is something we can find relatively often in Medieval art. The artpiece is telling a story which the viewers consider important and sympathize with on an emotional level, and the art and story moved the audience so much that someone couldn't hold their rage, so they scratched off the face of the hated person! This usually happens with depictions of Judas, Satan, or Herod.
More information about this scene, from the museum's website:
Saint Anthony the Abbot, an Egyptian hermit of the 4th century considered one of the fathers of monasticism, was a very popular saint in the Medieval world. His association with a piglet that took part in one of his miracles made it easy for him to be considered the patron saint of livestock and domestic animals; for this reason, his worship became very widespread in the Catalan countryside. The numerous altarpieces dedicated to him in the Late Middle Ages contributed to popularizing the episodes of his hagiography [=saint's biography], a story with ancient roots but fixed at that time by the account of the Golden Legend [an extremely popular book that compiled the lives of saints and other religious legends]. Anthony had been a rich heir who gave all his goods to the poor and retired to the desert to pray. Much of his story consists of narrating the temptations he suffered in the desert, very often represented in the form of devils of capricious shapes and colors that torment, cane, and bite him. Another popular scene of this kind represents the moment when Satan, having assumed the form of a seductive maiden, tempts him to break his vow of chastity; but the claws under the skirt betray the girl's true identity, which Anthony recognizes by pointing to the hellish fire from which it comes.
Images and text (slightly adapted) from Medieval Art Museum of Vic.
