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Cima da Conegliano

Saint Jerome in the Wilderness, c. 1500/1505

West Building, Main Floor — Gallery 10

Medium

oil on panel transferred to canvas

Dimensions

overall: 48 × 40 cm (18 7/8 × 15 3/4 in.)

framed: 66.68 × 58.74 × 10.8 cm (26 1/4 × 23 1/8 × 4 1/4 in.)

Credit Line

Samuel H. Kress Collection

Accession Number

1939.1.168

Artists / Makers

Cima da Conegliano (artist) Venetian, c. 1459 - 1517 or 1518

Image Use

This image is in the public domain.
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Inscription

lower right on scroll: Joannis b[a]pt[ista] C[o]n...

Provenance

Probably W.N. Hill, Bath; [1] (sale, Christie, Manson & Woods, London, 30 November - 1 December 1827, no. 59); bought by Radcliff.[2] Alexander Orloff-Davidoff, Saint Petersburg, by 1896;[3] sold 1930 to Arthur Hamilton Lee, 1st Viscount Lee of Fareham [1868-1947], Old Quarries, Gloucestershire;[4] (Count Alessandro Contini Bonacossi, Florence); purchased June 1935 by the Samuel H. Kress Foundation, New York;[5] gift 1939 to NGA.

[1] Francis Russell, "Review of Peter Humfrey, Cima da Conegliano, Cambridge, 1983," Journal of the Royal Society of Arts 132 (1984): 410, connects the Washington panel with that sold by Hill, described as "Cima di Conegliano: St. Jerome's Penitence, with romantic scenery, small upright, highly finished."

[2] Buyer according to annotated auctioneer catalogue, Christie's Archive, London. The catalogue describes the seller as a gentleman who had lived in Italy for twenty years.

[3] All references are simply to "Orloff-Davidoff collection," except for a note (in NGA curatorial files) stating "probably Alexander, according to a relative." Fritz Harck, "Notizen über italienische Bilder in petersburger Sammlungen," Repertorium für Kunstwissenschaft 19 (1896): 434, indicates that when the painting was in this collection the inscription read "Joannis bellinus opus."

[4] Ellis K. Waterhouse stated that he saw the painting when it was being sold in London in 1930 from the Orloff-Davidoff collection; Fern Rusk Shapley, Paintings from the Samuel H. Kress Collection: Italian Schools, XV-XVI Century, London, 1968: 60 n. 3.

[5] The bill of sale, dated 12 June 1935 was for a total of twenty-one paintings (copy in NGA curatorial files). See also The Kress Collection Digital Archive, https://kress.nga.gov/Detail/objects/1848.

Associated Names

Christie, Manson & Woods, Ltd.
Contini Bonacossi, Alessandro, Count
Hill, W.N.
Kress Foundation, Samuel H.
Lee, Arthur Hamilton 1st Viscount Lee of Fareham
Orloff-Davidoff, Alexander

Exhibition History

1938: Special Exhibition of Venetian Paintings from the Samuel H. Kress Collection, Seattle Art Museum; Portland Museum of Art, Oregon; Montgomery Museum of Fine Arts, Alabama, August-October 1938, no catalogue.

1938: Venetian Painting From the Fifteenth Century through the Eighteenth Century, California Palace of the Legion of Honor, San Francisco, June-July 1938, no. 22, repro.

1940: Four Centuries of Venetian Painting, Toledo Museum of Art, Ohio, 1940, no. 19, repro.

2010: Cima da Conegliano: Poeta del Paesaggio, Palazzo Sarcinelli, Conegliano, 2010, no. 40, repro.

Bibliography

1896: Harck, Fritz. "Notizen über italienische Bilder in petersburger Sammlungen," Repertorium für Kunstwissenschaft 19 (1896):434.

1923: Marle, Raimond van. The Development of the Italian Schools of Painting. 19 vols. The Hague, 1923-1938: 17(1935):455.

1938: Frankfurter, Alfred M. “The Venetians in California.” Art News 36 (16 July 1938): 7-11.

1941: Preliminary Catalogue of Paintings and Sculpture. National Gallery of Art, Washington, 1941: 40, no. 279.

1942: Book of Illustrations. National Gallery of Art, Washington, 1942: 245, repro. 85.

1945: Paintings and Sculpture from the Kress Collection. National Gallery of Art, Washington, 1945 (reprinted 1947, 1949): 95, repro.

1951: Einstein, Lewis. Looking at Italian Pictures in the National Gallery of Art. Washington, 1951: 82.

1952: Berenson, Bernard. Italian Painters of the Renaissance. 3rd edition. Oxford, 1952: pl. 28.

1953: Coletti, Luigi. La pittura veneta del Quattrocento. Novara, 1953: 179, repro.

1957: Berenson, Bernard. Italian Pictures of the Renaissance. Venetian School. 2 vols. London, 1957: 1:68.

1958: De Logu, Giuseppe. Pittura veneziana dal XIV al XVIII secolo. Bergamo, 1958: 237.

1958: Vaudoyer, Jean-Louis. La Peinture vénitienne. Paris, 1958: 237.

1959: Coletti, Luigi. Cima da Conegliano. Venice, 1959: 84, pl. 13, fig. 75.

1959: Paintings and Sculpture from the Samuel H. Kress Collection. National Gallery of Art, Washington, 1959: 149, repro.

1960: The National Gallery of Art and Its Collections. Foreword by Perry B. Cott and notes by Otto Stelzer. National Gallery of Art, Washington (undated, 1960s): 9.

1961: DeWald, Ernest T. Italian Painting 1200-1600. New York, 1961: 521.

1961: Puppi, Lionello. “Per Pasqualino Veneto.” Critica d’Arte 8, no. 44 (1961): 521.

1962: Roli, Renato. “Cima da Conegliano.” Arte Antica e Moderna 19 (1962): IX.

1963: Walker, John. National Gallery of Art, Washington, D.C. New York, 1963 (reprinted 1964 in French, German, and Spanish): 303, repro.

1965: Summary Catalogue of European Paintings and Sculpture. National Gallery of Art, Washington, 1965: 27.

1965: Zava Bocazzi, Franca. Cima da Conegliano. Milan, 1965: 5, repro.

1967: Jungblut, Renate. Hieronymus Darstellung und Verehrung eines Kirchenvaters. Bamberg, 1967: 163, fig. 220.

1968: National Gallery of Art. European Paintings and Sculpture, Illustrations. Washington, 1968: 20, repro.

1968: Shapley, Fern Rusk. Paintings from the Samuel H. Kress Collection: Italian Schools, XV-XVI Century. London, 1968: 59-60, fig. 142.

1972: Fredericksen, Burton B., and Federico Zeri. Census of Pre-Nineteenth Century Italian Paintings in North American Public Collections. Cambridge, MA, 1972: 53, 409, 645.

1975: European Paintings: An Illustrated Summary Catalogue. National Gallery of Art, Washington, 1975: 70, repro.

1979: Shapley, Fern Rusk. Catalogue of the Italian Paintings. 2 vols. Washington, 1979: 1:131-132; 2:pl. 91.

1980: Friedmann, Herbert. A Bestiary for Saint Jerome: Animal Symbolism in European Religious Art. Washington, DC, 1980: 49, 73, 289, 293, 321, fig. 33.

1981: Menegazzi, Luigi. Cima da Conegliano. Treviso, 1981: 10, 40, 42, 112-113, pl. 96.

1983: Humfrey, Peter. Cima da Conegliano. Cambridge and New York, 1983: 42, 166, pl. 28.

1983: Lattanzi, Marco, and Marica Mercalli. “Il tema del San Girolamo nell’eremo nella cultura veneta tra Quattrocento e Cinquecento.” In Bruno Contardi and Augusto Gentili, eds. Il S. Girolamo di Lorenzo Lotto a Castel S. Angelo. Exh. cat. Museo Nazionale di Castel Sant’Angelo, Rome, 1983: 97, fig. 54.

1984: Russell, Francis. “Review of Peter Humfrey, Cima da Conegliano (1983).” Journal of the Royal Society of Arts 132 (1984): 410.

1984: Walker, John. National Gallery of Art, Washington. Rev. ed. New York, 1984: 191, no. 218, color repro.

1985: European Paintings: An Illustrated Catalogue. National Gallery of Art, Washington, 1985: 89, repro.

1986: Faldon, Nilo, and Francesco Valcanover. Giambattista Cima da Conegliano. Treviso, 1986: 107, pl. 8.

1987: Russo, Daniel. Saint Jérome en Italie: Étude d’iconographie et de spiritualité XIIIe-XVe siècle. Paris and Rome, 1987: 211, fig. 39.

1992: Fomichova, Tamara. The Hermitage Catalogue of West European Painting, Vol. 2: Venetian Painting of the Fourteenth to Eighteenth Centuries. Florence, 1992: 146.

1994: Echols, Robert. "Cima and the Theme of Saint Jerome in the Wilderness." Venezia Cinquecento IV, no. 8 (July-December 1994): 47-69, fig. 9.

1998: Boeckl, Christine M. “Penitence/Repentance." In Helene E. Roberts, ed. Encyclopedia of Comparative Iconography: Themes Depicted in Works of Art. 2 vols. Chicago, 1998: 2:723.

2003: Boskovits, Miklós, and David Alan Brown, et al. Italian Paintings of the Fifteenth Century. The Systematic Catalogue of the National Gallery of Art. Washington, D.C., 2003: 210-213, color repro.

2012: Villa, Giovanni Carlo Federico. Cima da Conegliano, maître de la Renaissance vénitienne. Exh. cat. Musee du Luxembourg, Paris, 2012: 173, 174 fig. 44.

2013: Potočnik, Michele, and Giovanni Carlo Federico Villa, eds. Il paesaggio di Cima: Da Conegliano ai monti di Endimione. Treviso, 2013: , 69, 103, 113, cat. 24.