Penitent Saint Jerome
Artist
Jacopo del Sellaio
(1441-1493, active in Florence)
Date1480s
CultureItalian
MediumOil on wood
ClassificationPaintings
ProvenanceÉmile Gavet (1829–1904), Paris; sold in or after 1889 and before 1895 to William K. Vanderbilt (1849–1920) and Alva Erskine Smith Vanderbilt (1853–1933, from 1896, Mrs. Oliver Belmont) and installed in the Gothic Room of Marble House, Newport, Rhode Island; sold in 1927 by Mrs. Belmont through Duveen Brothers, New York, to John Ringling (1866–1936), Sarasota, Florida; bequest in 1936 to the John and Mable Ringling Museum of Art, Sarasota, Florida.
Credit LineBequest of John Ringling, 1936
Object numberSN17
A popular figure in the fifteenth century, Saint Jerome (d. 420) was a bishop who retired to live as a penitent in the desert. Here, Jerome kneels before a crucifix in a rocky wilderness, beating his bare torso with a rock in emulation of Christ’s earthly suffering. Jerome was the patron saint of learning and scholarship: observe the inkpot and quill in the rocks above him and the books beside his feet. Devotional images like this one were often made for domestic settings, particularly for homes belonging to scholars.
On View
On viewLocation
DimensionsFrame: 29 7/16 H x 20 13/16 W x 3 1/8 D in. (74.7 x 52.9 x 7.9 cm)- Museum of Art, Gallery 05
Unframed support: 20 11/16 H x 13 W x 1 D in. (52.6 x 33 x 2.5 cm)
Image: 19 7/8 H x 12 5/16 W (50.5 x 31.2 cm)
ca. 1600s
Giovanni del Biondo
late 1380s
