Saint Jerome in the Wilderness

c. 1575/1585

Veronese

Painter, Venetian, 1528 - 1588

Benedetto Caliari

Painter, Venetian, 1538 - 1598

A sinewy older man, his pale skin mostly exposed, sits on a stone low to the ground facing a table on our right in the center of this vertical painting. His gray hair is cropped short, and he has a graying, long beard. He faces our right in profile, and has a hooked nose, deep-set eyes, and the eyebrow we can see is bushy. The man's bare chest has a red wound flecked with darker red gashes. A smooth and shiny, rose-pink cloth drapes across his thighs and falls around his bare knees, its soft folds highlighted in white. A translucent white undergarment peeks out from beneath it. In the man’s left hand, farther from us, he holds the bottom of a wooden cross against the pages of an open book, which is propped up on a skull on a wooden table. The crucifix is as tall as the book. An hourglass sits on the corner of the table just beyond that hand. He clutches a palm-sized stone in his right arm, which is slightly bent and held down by his side. His legs are bent and cramped under his body as he sits on the low stone. A small lion lies in the shadows under the table. To our left and directly behind the man looms a brown, rocky arch with two wooden slats, like a fence, across its opening. Another rocky formation fills the space through the archway, leaving a sliver of blue sky while juniper-green bushes grow around its edges. To our right, a rolling wilderness stretches away to the horizon, with soft foliage of kelly green giving way to steep hills in soft blues. Hazy white squares suggest a cluster of buildings on the distant hillside. Pale gray and white clouds float across a sky that deepens from pale pink along the horizon to vivid blue along the top edge.

Media Options

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The penitent, half-naked Saint Jerome contemplates a crucifix. His chest is bloodied and raw from beating himself with a stone. Jerome was a priest and scholar who translated the Bible into Latin. During the period of his life depicted here, it is said that he went into the wilderness in Syria to study the Bible and to write, giving up material comforts. In a story about that time, he tamed a lion by treating its wounded paw. He is shown here with memento mori symbols (reminders of death) of a skull and an hourglass.

The overall style of this painting is that of Paolo Veronese; however, certain traits of the painting suggest that the work was completed by someone who worked under him in his studio. This assistant may have been Paolo’s younger brother Benedetto Caliari. The hard, shiny, and planar treatment of the foreground drapery and the approach to musculature resemble examples seen elsewhere in Benedetto’s work. The younger brother went on to become Veronese’s primary artistic heir after the master’s death in 1588.

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Artwork overview

  • Medium

    oil on canvas

  • Credit Line

    Samuel H. Kress Collection

  • Dimensions

    overall: 108 x 84.1 cm (42 1/2 x 33 1/8 in.)
    framed: 142.1 x 116.5 x 8.3 cm (55 15/16 x 45 7/8 x 3 1/4 in.)

  • Accession

    1961.9.47

More About this Artwork

Scholarly Article:  Italian Paintings of the Sixteenth Century: Saint Jerome in the Wilderness, c. 1575/1585

Scholarly Series:  Italian Paintings of the Sixteenth Century

Artwork history & notes

Provenance

Peter Lely [1618-1680], London; (his estate sale, at his residence, Covent Garden, London, 18 April 1682, fifth item on list);[1] purchased by Anthony Grey, 11th earl of Kent [1645-1702];[2] by descent in his family to Thomas Philip Robinson, 2nd earl De Grey of Wrest and 5th baron Lucas of Crudwell [1781-1859], Wrest Park, Ampthill, Bedfordshire;[3] by descent in his family to Nan Ino Herbert Cooper, 10th baroness Lucas of Crudwell [1880-1958], The Hall, Horsey, Norfolk, and Struy Lodge, Beauly, Highland, Scotland; (Lucas sale, Christie, Manson & Woods, London, 16 November 1917, no. 123); purchased by Smith. Freiherr Detlev von Hadeln [1878-1935], Venice. (Count Alessandro Contini Bonacossi, Florence); sold 1954 to the Samuel H. Kress Foundation, New York;[4] gift 1961 to NGA.
[1] The presence of the painting in this sale was brought to Fern Rusk Shapley's attention by Ellis Waterhouse (see his letter of 5 March 1959, in NGA curatorial files). The original sale catalogue consisted of a folded sheet of three closely printed pages, with no numbers assigned to the items in the lists; the sale consisted of paintings by artists other than Lely, drawings and pictures by Lely, and copies after Lely. The NGA painting is the fifth item on the first of these lists, described as "of Paul Veronese, St. Jerome, a whole figure with a Landskip [sic]," measuring in length 3 feet 6 inches and in "bredth [sic]" 2 feet 9 inches. See Brian Fairfax, A Catalogue of the Curious Collection of Pictures of George Villiers, Duke of Buckingham…also A Catalogue of Sir Peter Lely’s Capital Collection of Pictures…, London, 1758: 40, no. 5 (Fairfax numbered the lists); Charles Henry Collins Baker, Lely and the Stuart Portrait Painters: A Study of English Portraiture before & after Van Dyck, 2 vols., London, 1912-1913: 2:144; "Editorial: Sir Peter Lely's Collection," The Burlington Magazine 83, no. 485 (August 1943): 185-188; Ellis K. Waterhouse, “A Note on British Collecting of Italian Pictures in the Seventeenth Century,” The Burlington Magazine 102 (1960): 54. In support of the identification is the exact correspondence of the dimensions (42 by 33 inches), and the account of the provenance published in 1834 (see note 3).
[2] Kent is listed as the purchaser in the account book of Lely’s executors. See Diana Dethloff, “The Dispersal of Sir Peter Lely’s Collection,” Journal of the History of Collections 8 (1996): 18, 27. The full line of descent in his family is recorded in NGA curatorial files.
[3] As pointed out by Burton Fredericksen (message to Peter Humfrey, 7 October 2008), the picture appears as no. 116 in the catalogue of Earl De Grey’s collection, published in 1834, Catalogue of Pictures belonging to Thomas Philip Earl de Grey, at his house in St. James's Square. The entry states that the picture had been purchased at the Lely sale by the Earl of Kent.
[4] On 7 June 1954 the Kress Foundation made an offer to Contini Bonacossi for 16 paintings, including the NGA painting which was listed as St. Jerome. In a draft of one of the documents prepared for the count's signature in connection with the offer this painting is described as one "which came from my personal collection in Florence." The count accepted the offer on 30 June 1954; the final payment for the purchase was ultimately made in early 1957, after the count's death in 1955. (See copies of correspondence in NGA curatorial files and The Kress Collection Digital Archive, https://kress.nga.gov/Detail/objects/1850). When the painting was acquired by the Kress Foundation it had the number 212 painted at the lower right. Removed during conservation treatment later in 1954, this may have been an inventory number in an earlier collection (see photograph and conservation notes in NGA curatorial files).

Associated Names

Exhibition History

2003

  • Loan to display with permanent collection, Birmingham (Alabama) Museum of Art, 2003-2014.

Bibliography

1834

  • Catalogue of Pictures Belonging to Thomas Philip Earl de Grey at his house in St. James's Square. Privately printed, London, 1834: n.p., no. 116.

1956

  • Paintings and Sculpture from the Kress Collection Acquired by the Samuel H. Kress Foundation 1951-56. Introduction by John Walker, text by William E. Suida and Fern Rusk Shapley. National Gallery of Art. Washington, 1956: 192, no. 76, repro.

1957

  • Berenson, Bernard. Italian Pictures of the Renaissance. Venetian School. 2 vols. London, 1957: 1:130.

1959

  • Paintings and Sculpture from the Samuel H. Kress Collection. National Gallery of Art, Washington, 1959: 208, repro.

1960

  • Waterhouse, Ellis K. “A Note on British Collecting of Italian Pictures in the Seventeenth Century.” The Burlington Magazine 102 (1960): 54.

1962

  • Cairns, Huntington, and John Walker, eds. Treasures from the National Gallery of Art. New York, 1962: 40, color repro.

1965

  • Summary Catalogue of European Paintings and Sculpture. National Gallery of Art, Washington, 1965: 136.

1968

  • National Gallery of Art. European Paintings and Sculpture, Illustrations. Washington, 1968: 123, repro.

  • Marini, Remigio. Tutta la pittura di Paolo Veronese. Milan, 1968: 109, no. 124.

1972

  • Fredericksen, Burton B., and Federico Zeri. Census of Pre-Nineteenth Century Italian Paintings in North American Public Collections. Cambridge, Mass., 1972: 40, 409, 647.

1973

  • Shapley, Fern Rusk. Paintings from the Samuel H. Kress Collection: Italian Schools, XVI-XVIII Century. London, 1973: 42-43, fig. 76.

1975

  • European Paintings: An Illustrated Summary Catalogue. National Gallery of Art, Washington, 1975: 364, repro.

1976

  • Pignatti, Terisio. Veronese. 2 vols. Venice, 1976: 1:131.

1977

  • Cocke, Richard. “Review of Veronese, L’Opera Completa, by Terisio Pignatti.” The Burlington Magazine 119 (1977): 787.

1979

  • Shapley, Fern Rusk. Catalogue of the Italian Paintings. 2 vols. National Gallery of Art, Washington, 1979: 1:526-527; 2:pl. 366.

1984

  • Walker, John. National Gallery of Art, Washington. Rev. ed. New York, 1984: 215, no. 261, color repro.

  • Pallucchini, Rodolfo. Veronese. Milan, 1984: 86-87, 177.

1985

  • European Paintings: An Illustrated Catalogue. National Gallery of Art, Washington, 1985: 423, repro.

1988

  • Perissa Torrini, Annalisa. “San Gerolamo Penitente.” Quaderni della Soprintendenza ai Beni Artistici e Storici di Venezia 15 (1988): 139.

1991

  • Pignatti, Terisio, and Filippo Pedrocco. Veronese: Catalogo completo dei dipinti. Florence, 1991: 178, no. 178.

1995

  • Pignatti, Terisio, and Filippo Pedrocco. Veronese. 2 vols. Milan, 1995: 1:266-267 no. 169; 2:384.

Wikidata ID

Q20176801

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