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Saint Jerome, c. 1638-1640

Jusepe de Ribera (Spanish, 1591-1652)

Oil on canvas, Framed: 150 x 121.5 x 9 cm (59 1/16 x 47 13/16 x 3 9/16 in.); Unframed: 129 x 100.3 cm (50 13/16 x 39 1/2 in.). Mr. and Mrs. William H. Marlatt Fund 1961.219

Location:

212 Baroque Painting and Sculpture

Description

Saint Jerome (about ad 347–420) translated biblical texts into Latin. Although he sometimes appears as a scholar in his study, Ribera represents him here as a penitent who withdrew to the desert, beating his chest with a stone to emulate Christ’s suffering and contemplating a skull symbolizing human vanity. Working in Naples, Ribera enthusiastically adapted Caravaggio’s characteristic use of light and dark and naturalistic models.

Inscription

Signed lower right: "Jusepe de Ribera espa[ñol]"

Provenance

Until c. 1960?	Private collection, Italy, probably consigned to Alessandro Morandotti¹
Until 1960	(Alessandro Morandotti, Zurich, sold to F. Kleinberger in 1960)²
1960-1961	(F. Kleinberger & Co., New York, sold to the Cleveland Museum of Art)
1961-	The Cleveland Museum of Art, Cleveland, Ohio
Footnotes ¹According to Harry G. Sperling, the president of F. Kleinberger, & Co., the painting had been in an unknown private collection in Italy for generations. ²In Richard Spear’s Caravaggio and his Followers, as well as in the museum’s files, the owner of the painting prior to F. Kleinberger was cited as a private collector in Italy. The Kleinberger stock card for this painting reveals that the gallery purchased the painting from “Morandotti,” presumably Alessandro Morandotti, a dealer based in Zurich. A letter from Harry G. Sperling, the president of F. Kleinberger, to former CMA curator Henry S. Francis suggests that Morandotti sold the painting to Kleinberger on behalf of this unnamed private collector: “The Ribera was purchased by me officially in Zurich, Switzerland. I had seen it for the first time in Italy and agreed to buy it if it was offered to me in Zurich…The painting came directly from private hands, where supposedly it was in the family for generations. I was not given the name of the family.” When Morandotti died in 1979, his archives were dismantled.
Citations Cleveland Museum of Art. European Paintings of the 16th, 17th, and 18th Centuries. Cleveland: Cleveland Museum of Art, 1982. Harry G. Sperling, letter to Henry S. Francis, Oct. 6, 1961, in CMA curatorial file. Spear, Richard E. Caravaggio and His Followers. New York: Harper & Row, 1975. Stock cards, 1897-1973, and clipping file, F. Kleinberger, & Co., European Paintings, the Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York, NY.

Exhibition History

CMA, November 1961: "Year in Review," cat., bull., (November 1961), p. 250 no. 68, repr. p. 218.
John Herron Art Museum, Indianapolis, Indiana, February 10- march 24, 1963: "El Greco to Goya: A Loan Exhibition of Spanish Painting of the Seventeenth and Eighteenth Centuries," cat. no. 68, pl. 68 (catalogue by David Carter); Rhode Island School of Design, Providence RI April15-May 26, 1963.
Jacksonville, Florida, Cummer Gallery of Art, 1965: " 700 Years of Spanish Art," cat. no. 31, illus. (October-November 1965).
CMA October 29, 1971- January 2 1972: "Carravaggion and His Followers," cat. no. 57 (revised 1975), repr. p. 155.
Fort Worth, Texas, The Kimbell Art Museum, 1982-83: "The Tangible World of the Spirit: The Paintings of Jusepe de Ribers,"
CMA November 6, 1984- January 6, 1985: "Baroque Imagery," cat. # 6, pp. 23-24, repr. p. 24.

Research

To request more information about this object, study images, or bibliography, contact the Ingalls Library Reference Desk.

Saint Jerome, c. 1638-1640

Footnotes

Citations