Saint Jerome in the Wilderness
Saint Jerome in the Wilderness
- Artist
- Lorenzo Lotto
- Artist Dates
- c. 1480-1556/1557
- Artist Nationality
- Italian
- Title
- Saint Jerome in the Wilderness
- Date
- 1515
- Medium
- oil on canvas
- Dimensions
- 39.4 x 32.1 cm (15-1/2 x 12-5/8 in)
- K Number
- K595
- Repository
- Allentown Art Museum
- Accession Number
- 1960.027.000
- Notes
Provenance
Probably Domenico Tassi dal Cornello, Bergamo, by 1525. Paolo Brognoli, Brescia, by 1820. (Otto Mündler [1811-1870], London and Paris). [1] Richard Nathaniel Curzon, 2nd Viscount Scarsdale [1898-1977]; [2] (sold, Christie's, London, 11 February 1938, no. 41). Mr. Waters. (Sale, Christie's, London, 28 July 1939, no. 146); purchased by Smith. [3] (Count Alessandro Contini Bonacossi [1878-1955], Rome and Florence); sold to Samuel H. Kress [1863-1955] on 13 March 1941; gift to the Allentown Art Museum in 1960, no. 1960.27. [1] Not included in the sale of Mündler's estate held at the Hôtel Drouot, Paris, on 27 November 1871, or mentioned in his travel diaries of 1855-1888 published by the Walpole Society in 1985. [2] Seller per annotated auctioneer catalogue, Christie's Archive, London [3] Annotated sales catalogue in National Gallery of Art library.
Catalogue Entry
Lorenzo Lotto
Saint Jerome in the Wilderness
K595
Allentown, Pa., Allentown Art Museum (60.27.KB), since 1960.(1) Canvas. 15 1/2 X 12 5/8 in. (39.4 X 32.1 cm.). Inscribed in gold at lower right: LAVRENTIVS LOTVS 1515. Good condition except for a few restorations. Of Lotto's several paintings of this subject, the earliest now known is the one dated 1506, in the Louvre. There the landscape, very Giorgionesque in character, dominates the picture to such an extent that the figure of the saint seems almost incidental. He is far more prominent in K595, and the energetic action shown here was to become progressively more impassioned in the artist's later paintings of the subject, one dated 1520 in the Bruckenthal Gallery, Sibiu (Rumania), and two others, of about 1545, in the Prado, Madrid, and the Doria Gallery, Rome. K595 dates from the period when Lotto was working in Bergamo, and there are at least two reasons for believing that it may have been painted for a Bergamask collector. First, a painting which was many years ago in the Sandor Lederer Collection, Budapest, is recognizable as a copy after K595 by the Bergamask artist Previtali and is said to have come from Bergamo in 1899.(2) Second, a small painting of St. Jerome by Lotto is mentioned by Michiel (the Anonimo Morelliano) in the early sixteenth century as in the house of a certain Domenico [Tassi] dal Cornello, Bergamo;(3) this may well be identical with the one 'signed in gold letters and dated 1515' in the nineteenth-century collection of Otto Mündler, Paris,(4) which, in tum, is believed to be identical with K595.(5) Provenance: Possibly Domenico Tassi dal Comello, Bergamo (early sixteenth century). Otto Mündler, Paris (c. 1860). Anonymous sales, Christie's, London, Feb. 11, 1938, no. 41, as Lotto; bought by Waters; and July 28, 1939, no. 146, as Lotto; bought by Smith. Contini Bonacossi, Florence. Kress acquisition, 1941 – exhibited, always as Lotto: 'Old and Modem Masterpieces,' Allentown, Pa., Oct. 22-26, 1948, no. 83; National Gallery of Art, Washington, D.C., 1951;(6) Honolulu Academy of Arts, Honolulu, Hawaii, 1952-53;(7) 'Mostra di Lorenzo Lotto,' Palazzo Ducale, Venice, 1953, no. 32 of catalogue; Birmingham Museum of Art, Birmingham, Ala., 1959-60;(8) after entering Allentown Art Museum: 'Art Treasures for America,' National Gallery of Art, Washington, D.C., Dec. 10, 1961-Feb. 4, 1962, no. 54, of catalogue.
References
(1) Catalogue by F. R. Shapley, 1960, pp. 60 ff., as Lotto. (2) The Previtali copy was in the Lederer Collection when it was published (apparently without knowledge that it was a copy) by G. Bernardini (in L'Arte, vol. IX, 1906, p. 98, fig. 3); F. Heinemann (Giovanni Bellini e i belliniani, vol. I, 1962, p. 142) says it came from Bergamo in 1899 and measures 24 X 20 7/8 in. (3) G. Frizzoni, Notizia d'opere di disegno, pubblicata ed illustrata da Jacopo Morelli, 1884, p. 139. (4) Both Frizzoni (loc. cit. in note 3, above) and Morelli (Italienische Malerei, vol. I: Die Galerien Borghese und Doria Pamphili, 1890, p. 391) tentatively identified Tassi's St. Jerome with Mündler's. (5) This identification was first suggested by E. K. Waterhouse (in ms. opinion) and has been followed by A. Banti and A. Boschetto (Lorenzo Lotto, n.d. [1953], p. 70), and B. Berenson (Lorenzo Lotto, 1956, p. 37). K595 is cited also by L. Coletti (in Emporium, vol. CXXIV, 1956, p. 154), publishing a St. Jerome by Lotto of c. 1520/25 in a private collection in Milan. (6) Paintings and Sculpture from the Kress Collection, 1951, p. 106 (catalogue by W. E. Suida) , as Lotto. (7) Catalogue by Suida, 1952, p. 40, as Lotto. (8) Catalogue by Suida, 1959, pp. 72 f, as Lotto.