Saint Jerome in the Desert

c. 1461

Desiderio da Settignano

Artist, Florentine, c. 1429 - 1464

A man wearing a cloak tied around his body kneels with his hands together at the foot of a crucifix, set against a rocky outcropping on this stone panel. The scene is shallowly carved in low relief from pale, apricot-peach marble. Both the kneeling man, Saint Jerome, and the man hanging on the cross have raised, disk-like halos. Slightly right of center, the kneeling man looks up at the cross from under heavy brows. He has hollow cheekbones and short hair. His robe is tied over his shoulders and falls across his hips, but his feet and slender arms are bare. The man on the cross is smaller in scale, less than half the size of Saint Jerome. He hangs heavily from his hands, which are nailed into the cross, and his head falls forward. He is nude except for a loincloth across his hips. A rocky, hut-like form fills the space behind Saint Jerome. A few details are lightly carved so are visible only on closer inspection. These include a smaller cross along the left edge of the panel and a skull at the base of the crucifix. Between the crucifix and rocky structure, a male and female lion run toward Saint Jerome, mouths open. In the space between Saint Jerome and the right edge of the panel, another person is lightly carved into the background. He runs to our right while looking back over one shoulder, perhaps at the lions. One hand is flung high, his mouth wide open, and his hair stands on end. His voluminous robe flutters around his body. Beyond him, triangular trees recede into the distance under a cloud-streaked sky.

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Desiderio da Settignano, born in a small village in the hills above Florence, numbers among the most brilliant marble sculptors of the Renaissance. His mastery of relief sculpture is apparent in this pictorially rich image, with its complicated space in which figures move in different planes, all suggested by the subtlest manipulations of the marble surface.

Clearly Desiderio had learned much from the low-relief techniques of Donatello. The sculptor invented a rocky, wilderness landscape with a cloud-streaked sky and tall, pointed cypress trees receding into the distance among the cliffs. In the foreground, Saint Jerome kneels in penitential prayer before a crucifix. He wears only a few crumpled wisps of drapery, and his gaunt face tells of fervent, ascetic devotion. On the right, in particularly fine low relief, suggesting he is some distance in the background, a terrified boy flees from the lions that emerge from the rocks on the left behind the cross.

According to legend, Jerome tamed a lion by removing a thorn from its paw, and the lion therefore often appears as his attribute in art. The lions here, clearly no threat to the saint, suggest his harmonious relationship with nature, achieved through solitary meditation, prayer, and penance.

On View

West Building Ground Floor, Gallery G15

Artwork overview

  • Medium

    marble

  • Credit Line

    Widener Collection

  • Dimensions

    overall: 42.7 x 54.8 cm (16 13/16 x 21 9/16 in.)
    framed: 58.4 x 70.2 x 9.5 cm (23 x 27 5/8 x 3 3/4 in.)

  • Accession

    1942.9.113

Artwork history & notes

Provenance

Possibly the marble "basso relievo" of "San Gírolamo" in the "Prima Stanza della guardaroba segreta" in Palazzo Vecchio in 1553.[1] (Tito Gagliardi, Florence); purchased c. 1870 by Grand Duchess Maria Nikolaévna [1819-1876, daughter of Czar Nicolas I] as a gift to Baron Karl Eduard von Liphart [1808-1891], Florence;[2] removed c. 1891 to the family estate, Raadi Manor, near Tartu, Estonia (known in German as Schloss Ratshof, near Dorpat);[3] his grandson, Baron Renaud de Liphart, Raadi Manor, by 1907,[4] then Poland,[5] and later Copenhagen; purchased 1921 through (Wilhelm R. Valentiner, New York) by the Estate of Peter A.B. Widener;[6] inheritance from the Estate of Peter Widener by gift through power of appointment of Joseph E. Widener, Lynnewood Hall, Elkins Park, Pennsylvania, after purchase 1921 by funds of Joseph E. Widener; gift 1942 to NGA.
[1] Nicholas Penny (citing Cosimo Conti, La prima reggia di Cosimo I de' Medici nel Palazzo già della Signoria di Firenze, Florence, 1893: 141), in Desiderio da Settignano: Sculptor of Renaissance Florence, exh. cat., Musée du Louvre, Paris; Museo Nazionale del Bargello, Florence; National Gallery of Art, Washington, D.C., Florence, 2007: 192, no. 15.
[2] Sergey Androsov, "Collection de la Grande Duchesse Marie Nicolaévna et de Karl Eduard von Liphart," Baltic Journal of Art History (Autumn 2011-Spring 2012): 294-296. Androsov quotes from an unpublished manuscript by Liphart's son, Ernst von Liphart (1847-1932), in the archives of the State Hermitage Museum, Saint Petersburg: "L'(h)eritage du duchesse Marie," fond 23, opis' I, delo 69, ff. 2, 3. See also Wilhelm von Bode, Italienische Bildhauer der Renaissance: Studien zur Geschichte der Italienischen Plastik und Malerei auf Grund der Bildwerke und Gemälde in den Königl. Museen zu Berlin, Berlin, 1887: 55-57. Baron von Liphart was an Estonian nobleman residing in Florence, and was Maria Nikolaévna's principal consultant in the formation of her collection.
[3] Wilhelm Bode, "Eine Marmorkopie Michelangelo's nach dem antiken Cameo mit Apollo und Marsyas," Jahrbuch der königlich preussischen Kunstsammlungen, 12, 1891: 167; Wilhelm Neuman, "Aus Baltischen Gemäldersammlungen," Zeitschrift für Bildende Kunst, 35, vol. II of new series (December 1900): 269, fig. 6; from Penny 2007.
[4] Published as in this collection by Paul Schübring, Donatello, des Meisters Werke in 277 Abbildungen, Stuttgart and Leipzig, 1907: 186.
[5] Melissa Beck Lemke, "The mysteries of Desiderio's 'St. Jerome' revealed by Clarence Kennedy," The Burlington Magazine 150 (November 2008): 756, 756 n. 17, 757.
[6] See correspondence between Valentiner and Baron de Liphart, then in Copenhagen, dated 1921, in NGA curatorial files.

Associated Names

Exhibition History

2006

  • Desiderio da Settignano: Sculptor of Renaissance Florence, Musée du Louvre, Paris; Museo Nazionale del Bargello, Florence; National Gallery of Art, Washington, D.C., 2006-2007, no. 15, repro.

2013

  • La Primavera del Rinascimento: La Scultura e le Arti a Firenze 1400-1460, Palazzo Strozzi, Florence; Musée du Louvre, Paris, 2013-2014, no. VII.9, repro.

Bibliography

1887

  • Bode, Wilhelm von. Italienische Bildhauer der Renaissance. Berlin, 1887: 56-57.

1892

  • Bode, Wilhelm von. Denkmäler der Renaissance-Sculptur in Italien. 17 vols. Munich, 1892-1904: 7:pl. 305.

1900

  • Neumann, Dr. Wilhelm. "Aus Baltischen Gemäldesammlungen." Zeitschrift für Bildende Kunst 35, new series 11 (1900): 269 fig. 6, 271.

1907

  • Schubring, Paul. Donatello: Des Meisters Werke in 277 Abbildungen. Stuttgart and Leipzig, 1907: repro. (2nd ed., New York, 1921)

1908

  • Bode, Wilhelm von. Florentine Sculptors of the Renaissance. London, 1908: 114.

1921

  • Bode, Wilhelm von. Florentiner Bildhauer der Renaissance. 4th ed. Berlin, 1921: 174-175.

1924

  • Venturi, Adolfo. L'Arte a San Girolamo. Milan, 1924: 165-166, 168, fig. 133.

1928

  • Valentiner, Wilhelm R. "The Italian Renaissance Sculptures of the Widener Collection." Art News 26, no. 28 (14 April 1928): 15-16, 17 pl. 4.

1929

  • The Magdalen and sculptures in relief by Desiderio da Settignano and his associates. Photographs by Clarence Kennedy. Studies in the history and criticism of sculpture [Smith College, Northampton, Massachusetts] 6 (1929): pls. 12-16.

1940

  • Middeldorf, Ulrich. "Two Florentine Sculptures at Toledo." Art in America 28, no. 1 (January 1940): 29.

1941

  • Goldscheider, Ludwig. Donatello. New York, 1941: 31 n. 20.

1942

  • Works of Art from the Widener Collection. Foreword by David Finley and John Walker. National Gallery of Art, Washington, 1942: 8.

  • Planiscig, Leo. Desiderio da Settignano. Vienna, 1942: 16, 42, pl. 4.

1943

  • Swarzenski, Georg. "Some Aspects of Italian Quattrocento Sculpture in the National Gallery." Gazette des Beaux-Arts 6th series, 24 (November 1943): 291.

1948

  • Paintings and Sculpture from the Widener Collection. National Gallery of Art, Washington, 1948 (reprinted 1959): 117, repro.

1949

  • Seymour, Charles. Masterpieces of Sculpture from the National Gallery of Art. Washington and New York, 1949: 177-178, note 29, repro. 102-105.

1957

  • Shapley, Fern Rusk. Comparisons in Art: A Companion to the National Gallery of Art, Washington, DC. London, 1957 (reprinted 1959): pl. 19.

1958

  • Pope-Hennessy, John. Italian Renaissance Sculpture. London, 1958: 37, 302, 303-304, pl. 65.

1962

  • Cardellini, Ida. Desiderio da Settignano. Milan, 1962: 244, fig. 296.

1965

  • Summary Catalogue of European Paintings and Sculpture. National Gallery of Art, Washington, 1965: 152.

1967

  • Clarence Kennedy. Exh. cat. Smith College Museum of Art, Northampton, Massachusetts, 1967: 22, fig. 94, mislabelled as Relief of the Christ-Child and Young St. John by Desiderio da Settignano and Associates.

1968

  • National Gallery of Art. European Paintings and Sculpture, Illustrations. Washington, 1968: 135, repro.

1972

  • Wittkower, Rudolf. "Desiderio da Settignano's St. Jerome in the Desert." Studies in the History of Art 4 (1971-1972): 6-37, repro.

1977

  • Wittkower, Rudolf. Sculpture: Processes and Principles. New York, 1977: 82-86, fig. 1.

1981

  • Vines, Grizel Cochrane. "Desiderio da Settignano." Ph.D. dissertation, University of Virginia, Charlottesville, 1981: 19, 24, 31, 51-52, 56, 61, 74, 141-146, no. 14.

1984

  • Walker, John. National Gallery of Art, Washington. Rev. ed. New York, 1984: 626, no. 970, repro.

1992

  • National Gallery of Art, Washington. National Gallery of Art, Washington, 1992: 286, repro.

1994

  • Sculpture: An Illustrated Catalogue. National Gallery of Art, Washington, 1994: 73, repro.

  • Penny, Nicholas. "Non-Finito in Italian Fifteenth-Century Bronze Sculpture." Antologia di belle arti new series, nos. 48-51 (1994): 14, figs. 5, 6.

2008

  • Lemke, Melissa Beck. "The mysteries of Desiderio's 'St Jerome' revealed by Clarence Kennedy." The Burlington Magazine CL (November 2008): 755-757, fig. 47.

2011

  • Luchs, Alison. " 'Cosi si specchi' :Speculations on Medici Patronage and Purposes for Desiderio's Louvre Tondo." In Connors, Joseph, Alessandro Nova, Beatrice Paolozzi Strozzi and Gerhard Wolf, eds. Papers from a colloquium held at the Kunsthistorisches Institut in Florence, Max-Planck-Institut, and at Villa I Tatti, The Harvard University Center for Italian Renaissance Studies, Florence, May 9-12, 2007 on occasion of the exhibition in Florence dedicated to Desiderio da Settignano. Venice, 2011: 1.

  • Androsov, Sergey. "Collection de la Grande Duchesse Marie Nicolaévna et de Karl Eduard von Liphart." Baltic Journal of Art History (Autumn 2011-Spring 2012): 294-296.

Wikidata ID

Q63809345

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