Saint Jerome (Leonardo da Vinci)

from Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Saint Jerome (Leonardo da Vinci)
Saint Jerome
Leonardo da Vinci , around 1482
Oil on walnut wood
103 × 137 cm
Vatican Pinacoteca , Rome

Saint Jerome is an unfinished painting by Leonardo da Vinci . Saint Jerome is depicted as a hermit in the desert.

description

The picture shows Hieronymus as an emaciated old man crouching in a rock grotto and about to hit his chest with a stone. In front of him lies a mighty lion, who turns to the saint with an open mouth. On the left in the background the grotto opens up and offers a view of a landscape with high rocks. On the opposite side there is a place on which the plaster primer has not yet been painted over and on which a church building is sketched. It is probably the front of Santa Maria Novella in Florence, which was completed in 1479 under the direction of Leon Battista Alberti .

history

There are no contemporary sources about the creation and commissioning of the picture. It is mentioned for the first time in Angelika Kauffmann's will , in which the picture is referred to as the work of Leonardo. It is not known what happened to the picture after her death. It only reappears in connection with its apparently legendary rediscovery by Cardinal Joseph Fesch , an uncle of Napoleon . According to this, the cardinal discovered the picture at a Roman antique dealer, but it was cut into pieces and with a square cutout where the saint's head had been removed from the picture. The board is said to have served as the lid of a chest. A shoemaker is said to have used the cutout with the saint's head for a stool. Cardinal Fesch had the parts found - five pieces in all - put back together again. After the cardinal's death in 1839, his estate, including Leonardo's painting, which was valued at 2,500 francs, was auctioned in the Palazzo Ricci in Rome. It is not known who bought it at auction or where it will be. In 1856 Pope Pius IX got it. acquired for the Vatican Art Gallery, where it was first exhibited in 1857.

Dating

The picture is neither signed nor dated. The authorship of Leonardos is unanimously accepted by art science, which is based primarily on stylistic arguments. The similarity with the “ Adoration of the Magi ” is generally pointed out, also an unfinished picture by Leonardo that is kept in the Uffizi in Florence.

Restorations

When it entered the Vatican Museums, the painting was in poor condition. The thick varnish had yellowed and falsified the colors. The irregular edges of the sections were glued together or clamped together with three dovetail teeth. There are a number of retouchings , some of which were obviously intended to cover the damaged areas that were made when the panel was sawed. In 1929 the picture was cleaned and subjected to cradling (stabilization with a lattice of wooden sticks) to secure the walnut board. In this context, an oak panel stuck to the back in the 19th century was removed.

Exhibitions

The picture has rarely been shown in exhibitions outside the Vatican. An early exception is a charity exhibition in Lucerne for the benefit of the Biblioteca Ambrosiana , which was badly damaged by a bombing during the Second World War. 1983 to 1984 the picture was shown in the United States as part of the traveling exhibition “The Vatican Collections. The Papacy and Art ”was shown in New York, Chicago and San Francisco. In 2019 the picture was shown in the special show “Leonardo. Il San Girolamo dei Musei Vaticani ”exhibited in the Braccio di Carlo Magno on St. Peter's Square for three months. The exhibition is complemented by a document from 1513 that confirms Michelangelo's stay in the Belvedere area . From February 2020, the picture was loaned to the Louvre in Paris for the Leonardo retrospective .

literature

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ a b c d e Fabrizio Mancinelli: Leonardo da Vinci. Saint Jerome. In: The Vatican Collections. The Papacy and Art. Exhibition catalog. Ed. Abrams The Metropolitan Museum of Art. New York: Abrams 1983. No. 80. pp. 156-157. ISBN 0-87099-321-6
  2. ↑ Leonardo da Vinci, St. Hieronymus , Musei Vaticani, accessed June 9, 2020
  3. ↑ Vatican special show on Leonardo Da Vinci , accessed on June 9, 2020
  4. ^ Louvre, press release , accessed on June 9, 2020