Skip to Main Content

Overview

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.

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.

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
Planiscig, Leo. Desiderio da Settignano. Vienna, 1942: 16, 42, pl. 4.
1942
Works of Art from the Widener Collection. Foreword by David Finley and John Walker. National Gallery of Art, Washington, 1942: 8.
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
Penny, Nicholas. "Non-Finito in Italian Fifteenth-Century Bronze Sculpture." Antologia di belle arti new series, nos. 48-51 (1994): 14, figs. 5, 6.
1994
Sculpture: An Illustrated Catalogue. National Gallery of Art, Washington, 1994: 73, repro.
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
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.
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.

Related Content

  • Sort by:
  • Results layout:
Show  results per page
The image compare list is empty.