Saint Jerome Reading
Saint Jerome Reading
- Artist
- Alvise Vivarini
- Artist Dates
- 1442/1453-1503/1505
- Artist Nationality
- Italian
- Title
- Saint Jerome Reading
- Date
- c. 1476
- Medium
- tempera on panel
- Dimensions
- 31.4 x 25.1 cm (12 3/8 x 9 7/8 in)
- K Number
- K538
- Repository
- National Gallery of Art
- Accession Number
- 1939.1.311
- Notes
Provenance
Mameli, Rome. [1] William Jones, Clytha Park, Gwent, Wales; (his sale, Christie & Manson, London, 8 May 1852, no. 65). [2] (Thomas [Tomás] Harris, London), by 1930; [3] purchased by Godfrey Locker-Lampson [1875-1946], Barlborough Hall, Derbyshire, and London, by 1937; [4] purchased by (Count Alessandro Contini-Bonacossi, Florence); [5] sold September 1938 to the Samuel H. Kress Foundation, New York; [6] gift 1939 to NGA. [1] Fern Rusk Shapley, _Paintings from the Samuel H. Kress Collection: Italian Schools, XV-XVI Century_, London, 1968: 48-49, and _Catalogue of the Italian Paintings_, 2 vols., Washington, D.C., 1979: 1:535-536, lists this owner, without citing a source. There is no further information in NGA curatorial files. [2] _Catalogue of the Important Collection of Capital Pictures, by Italian, Flemish, and English Masters, Acquired Chiefly during a Long Residence in Italy, by William Jones, Esq., of Clytha_. No. 65 is described as "Vivarini: St. Paul the Hermit, seated, with a book in his hand, near a rocky cave, with a lake in the background." On Jones and his collection, see Francis Russell, "Documents for the History of Collecting: 17," _Burlington Magazine_ 136 (1994): 90. [3] Tancred Borenius, "An Unpublished Work by Alvise Vivarini," _Der Cicerone_ 22 (1930): 500, repro. 501. [4] Robert Langton Douglas, _A Few Italian Pictures Collected by Godfrey Locker-Lampson_, London, n.d.: 44, repro. 45. Although no date is printed, the catalogue is reliably dated to 1937 on the following evidence, kindly provided by Charles Sebag-Montefiore in a letter of 2 September 2001 (in NGA curatorial files): a manuscript note by Ellis Waterhouse in his own copy of the catalogue (Waterhouse papers, Getty Research Institute, Los Angeles), and a reference by Denys Sutton in "Robert Langton Douglas. Connoisseur of Art and Life (Part IV)," _Apollo_ CX, no. 209, new series (July 1979): 30. Douglas probably handled Locker-Lampson pictures after Locker-Lampson's death in 1946. [5] According to Charles Sebag-Montefiore's _A Bibliography of the British as Collectors_ (forthcoming; copy of the entry for Godfrey Locker-Lampson in NGA curatorial files provided by the author), the 1937 catalogue was likely "prepared as a record of the collection before its dispersal." Contini-Bonacossi purchased four paintings from the collection, in either 1937 or 1938. [6] The bill of sale to the Kress Foundation, for a total of twenty-eight paintings including the Vivarini, is dated 16 September 1938 (copy in NGA curatorial files).