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The painting is considered Antonio's masterpiece, with a more rigid geometric control on the composition than in his previous works, without giving up his usual naturalness of poses and movement – the four archers in the foreground form two symmetrical poses, with the two central ones reloading and the two on the edges firing, in perfect equilibrium either side of the central post to which Sebastian is tied.
It can be contrasted with its near-contemporary, the Saint Sebastian by Botticelli, which instead puts the figure of the saint in isolation in a Flemish-inspired landscape. Francesco Botticini's Saint Sebastian, formerly attributed to Andrea del Castagno and dated to the years immediately after 1474, borrows from the Botticelli.
Francesco Botticini Andrea del Castagno Botticelli Saint Sebastian Antonio