Saint Jerome Penitent [left panel]

c. 1509/1512

Jan Gossaert

Artist, Netherlandish, c. 1478 - 1532

A man hangs on a cross nestled into the splayed opening of a splintered, barren tree in a rocky landscape in this narrow, vertical composition, which is painted entirely in black and gray. The man’s hands are nailed to the ends of the wide crossbeam of the cross, and his overlapping feet are nailed to the vertical beam. He wears a ring of thorns on his head and a loincloth across his hips. A voluminous cloth lies just beyond the tree, and farther back on the angular rocks are a lion and mule. A cliff rises steeply to our left and a body of water to our right leads back to a castle-like structure.

Media Options

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On View

West Building Main Floor, Gallery 41

Artwork overview

  • Medium

    oil on panel

  • Credit Line

    Samuel H. Kress Collection

  • Dimensions

    painted surface: 86.7 x 24.5 cm (34 1/8 x 9 5/8 in.)
    overall (panel): 86.7 x 25.3 cm (34 1/8 x 9 15/16 in.)
    framed: 94.3 x 61.2 x 5.7 cm (37 1/8 x 24 1/8 x 2 1/4 in.)

  • Accession

    1952.5.40.a

Associated Artworks

A man kneels, holding a rock to his bare chest, in a rocky landscape in this tall, vertical painting. The scene is painted entirely in white and gray. The man, Saint Jerome, takes up the bottom half of the narrow panel. He faces our left almost in profile and looks up and off in that direction. He is clean-shaven with rounded, sagging cheeks, deep-set eyes, and wispy, curly hair. A robe with deep, angular folds is open across his chest and puddles on the ground around his feet. He holds a rock to his chest with one muscular arm, and the other hangs by his side holding another rock. A flat-topped, wide-brimmed hat is on the ground in front of his knees, and a lion lies next to him, to our left. The lion’s features are flattened and rounded, with almost human eyes, mouth, and ears. A ridge of craggy boulders separates Saint Jerome and the lion from the landscape beyond. A man rides a camel next to a walking man on the far side of the ridge. The camel rider holds a whip up high, and the other man carries a basket on a long stick slung across one shoulder. A stony hill rises steeply in the near distance behind this pair. A church is cut from the rock there. On a rocky path leading to the church, the lion rests his front paws up on Saint Jerome like a dog expecting a treat. Here, Saint Jerome wears his hat and long robes. He appears again just to our left, approaching an arched door of the church. Spires and flying buttresses surround the church like lace. A river winds to another town in the deep distance to our left under a cloudy sky.

Saint Jerome Penitent [right panel]

Jan Gossaert

1509

Artwork history & notes

Provenance

John M. Romadka [d. 1898], Prague and Milwaukee, by 1858; his widow, Mrs. John M. Romadka [d. 1936]; their daughter, Mary Tekla Romadka, Pasadena, California.[1] (Duveen Brothers, New York), by 1945; purchased 1949 by the Samuel H. Kress Foundation, New York;[2] gift 1952 by exchange to NGA.
[1] Unverified. Provenance is as given in Duveen Art Galleries, An Exhibition of Flemish Paintings of the Fifteenth and Early Sixteenth Centuries (New York, 1946), no. 8; and Colin Eisler, Paintings from the Samuel H. Kress Collection: European Schools Excluding Italian (Oxford, 1977), 78-81.
[2] See The Kress Collection Digital Archive, https://kress.nga.gov/Detail/objects/1851.

Associated Names

Exhibition History

1945

  • Ten Masterpieces of Art, Crandall Public Library, Glens Falls, New York, 1945, no. 2.

  • An Exhibition of Painting and Sculpture of Saint Jerome, Durlacher Galleries, New York, 1945, no. 9.

  • Exhibition of Paintings by Old Masters, Flint Institute of Art, Michigan, 1945, no. 4.

1946

  • An Exhibition of Flemish Paintings of the Fifteenth and Early Sixteenth Centuries, Duveen Art Galleries, New York, 1946, no. 8.

2010

  • Jan Gossaert's Renaissance, The Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York; The National Gallery, London, 2010-2011, no. 22, repro. (not in London catalogue).

Bibliography

1907

  • Winkler, Friedrich. "Gossaert, Jan." In Thieme-Becker. 37 vols. Leipzig, 1907-1950: 2(1921):412.

1916

  • Friedländer, Max J. Von Eyck bis Bruegel. Berlin, 1916: 188.

1924

  • Friedländer, Max J. Die altniederländische Malerei 14 vols.,1924-1937. Berlin, 1930: 8:154, no. 22, pl. 23. (English ed., 14 vols., 1967-1976. Leiden, 1972: 8:93, 120, no. 22, pl. 21.)

1933

  • Held, Julius. "Overzicht der Litteratuur betreffende Nederlandsche Kunst." Oud Holland 50 (1933): 137-138.

  • Smits, K. De Ikonographie van de Nederlandsche Primitieven. Amsterdam, 1933: 187.

1945

  • Anon. "Old Masters Feature Flint Victory Show." The Art Digest 19 (15 September, 1945): 8, repro.

  • Breuning, Margaret. "Portraying St. Jerome." Art Digest 19 (15 March, 1945): 21.

  • Glück, Gustav. "Mabuse and the Development of the Flemish Renaissance." The Art Quarterly 8 (1945): 127, fig. 8.

  • Louchheim, Aline. "Saint Jerome. Variations on a Theme." Art News 44 (15-31 March, 1945): 10, 31, repro.

1951

  • Folie, Jacqueline. "Les Dessins de Jean Gossaert dit Mabuse." Gazette des Beaux-Arts 38 (appeared 1960) (1951): 84.

  • Frankfurter, Alfred. "Interpreting Masterpieces: Twenty-four Paintings from the Kress Collection." Art News 50 (1951): 114-115, repro. 109, 115.

  • Paintings and Sculpture from the Kress Collection Acquired by the Samuel H. Kress Foundation 1945-1951. Introduction by John Walker, text by William E. Suida. National Gallery of Art, Washington, 1951: 198, no. 87, repro.

1952

  • Frankfurter, Alfred M. "Interpreting Masterpieces: Twenty-four Paintings from the Kress Collection." Art News Annual 16 (1952): 114-115, repro. 109.

1957

  • Shapley, Fern Rusk. Comparisons in Art: A Companion to the National Gallery of Art, Washington, DC. London, 1957: 20.

1959

  • Paintings and Sculpture from the Samuel H. Kress Collection. National Gallery of Art, Washington, 1959: 281, repro.

1960

  • Broadley Hugh T. Flemish Painting in the National Gallery of Art (Booklet no. 5 in Ten Schools of Painting in the National Gallery of Art, Washington, DC). Washington, 1960: 7, 28-29, color repro.

1961

  • Walker, John, Guy Emerson, and Charles Seymour. Art Treasures for America: An Anthology of Paintings & Sculpture in the Samuel H. Kress Collection. London, 1961: 86, 87, 211, fig. 79.

  • Osten, Gert von der. "Studien zu Jan Gossaert." De Artibus Opuscula XL. Essays in Honor of Erwin Panofsky. 2 vols. New York, 1961: 457, fig. 1.

1962

  • Winkler, Friedrich. "Aus der ersten Schaffenzeit des Jan Gossaert." Pantheon 20 (1962): 150-151, fig. 11.

1963

  • Walker, John. National Gallery of Art, Washington, D.C. New York, 1963 (reprinted 1964 in French, German, and Spanish): 304, repro.

1965

  • Jean Gossaert dit Mabuse. Exh. cat. Museum Boymans-van Beuningen, Rotterdam; Groeningemuseum, Bruges, 1965: 53.

  • Bruyn, Josua. "The Jan Gossaert Exhibition in Rotterdam and Bruges." The Burlington Magazine 107 (1965): 463.

  • Summary Catalogue of European Paintings and Sculpture. National Gallery of Art, Washington, 1965: 60.

1968

  • Cuttler, Charles D. Northern Painting, from Pucelle to Bruegel: Fourteenth, Fifteenth, and Sixteenth Centuries. New York, 1968: 428.

  • The Picture Gallery. Summary Catalogue of Paintings in the Dahlem Museum. Berlin, 1968: 51, no. 551A.

  • Herzog, Sadja. "Jan Gossaert called Mabuse (ca. 1478-1532): A Study of his Chronology with a Catalogue of his Works." Ph.D. diss., Bryn Mawr College, 1968: 60-62, 210-213, no. 5, pl. 6.

  • National Gallery of Art. European Paintings and Sculpture, Illustrations. Washington, 1968: 52, repro.

1969

  • Osten, Gert von der, and Horst Vey. Painting and Sculpture in Germany and the Netherlands 1500 to 1600. Harmondsworth, 1969: 156.

1970

  • Herzog, Sadja. "Gossaert, Italy and the National Gallery's Saint Jerome Penitent." Studies in the History of Art 3 (1969-70):59-73, figs. 1-5.

1972

  • Hand, John Oliver. Joos van Cleve and the Saint Jerome in the Norton Gallery and School of Art. West Palm Beach, 1972: unpaginated, fig. 2.

1974

  • Kuretsky, Susan. "Rembrandt's Tree Stump: An Iconographic Attribute of St. Jerome." The Art Bulletin 56, no. 4 (December 1974): 573-574, fig. 4.

1975

  • Gemäldegalerie Berlin, Staatliche Museen Preussischer Kulturbesitz, Katalog der ausgestellten Gemälde des 13.-18. Jahrhunderts. Berlin, 1975: 179-180, no. 551A.

  • European Paintings: An Illustrated Summary Catalogue. National Gallery of Art, Washington, 1975: 156, repro. 157.

  • Walker, John. National Gallery of Art, Washington. New York, 1975: 134, figs. 137, 138.

1977

  • Eisler, Colin. Paintings from the Samuel H. Kress Collection: European Schools Excluding Italian. Oxford, 1977: 78-81, figs. 73-75.

1984

  • Walker, John. National Gallery of Art, Washington. Rev. ed. New York, 1984: 135, no. 131, color repro.

1985

  • European Paintings: An Illustrated Catalogue. National Gallery of Art, Washington, 1985: 181, repro.

1986

  • Hand, John Oliver and Martha Wolff. Early Netherlandish Painting. The Collections of the National Gallery of Art Systematic Catalogue. Washington, 1986: 99-103, repro. 100.

Wikidata ID

Q20175135

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