Saint Jerome Writing by Caravaggio, 1605-1606

 
Saint Jerome Writing by Caravaggio
 
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Caravaggio

Bellori mentions Carravaggio's Saint Jerome thus: "For Cardinal Scipione Borghese, Caravaggio painted a "Saint Jerome writing with concentration; he extends his hand and the pen toward the inkwell." In 1659 it is again mentioned by Manilli, Villa Borghese: "Stanza del Moro, it San Girolamo, the sta scrivendo, e del Caravaggio."

The Borghese Saint Jerome is a characteristic work of Caravaggio's later Roman years. It was made for Scipione Borghese about the same time as the beautiful David, to which the Saint Jerome is stylistically close in the fluid treatment of light, in retaining the bodies within a slightly receding closed space, and in the evident, but very subtle movement toward the spectator.

The bearded old man, his bald head slanting a bit forward, is a further development of similar types in Caravaggio's earlier work (the man with the eyeglasses in the Calling of Saint Matthew, Saint Peter in the Crucifixion of St. Peter, and the attendant in The Conversion of St. Paul), and is closest to the head of the long-bearded Apostle who stands almost in the center of the Death of the Virgin of 1605.

The painting of St. Jerome in Meditation at the convent of Montserrat in Spain came there from a Roman collection in 1911. It shows the saint almost in full-length, and the facial type is the same as that in the Borghese painting. Longhi accepts it as an original by Caravaggio. This canvas lacks the distinction of that in the Borghese and may well be a very clever imitation.





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