Antwerp School 16th century
Saint Jerome in the Desert
Oil on panel. 51.5 x 67.5 cm.
This painting by an Antwerp master shows St Jerome (c. 347-420) in a central position in the mid-foreground as a kneeling penitent with the Bible and a cross in one hand and a stone in the other. To his left a lion, an attribute of the Church Father, drinks from a spring, to his right lie his bright red cardinal's robes. This depiction of the "vita contemplativa" is contrasted in the background by the lively and detailed rendering of a fortified city and a harbour navigated by numerous ships - the "vita activa" (cf. Jan Nicolaisen, loc. cit.). The panoramic landscape is painted in the tradition of the Antwerp artists Joachim Patinir (cf. e.g. Landscape with Jerome, Paris, Louvre) and Herri met de Bles.
Provenance
Collection of Adalbert von Kolasinski, Warsaw. - Auctioned by Rudolph Lepke's Kunst-Auctions-Haus, Berlin, 5.6.1917, lot 87 illus. (as: Dutch school, around 1520). - Alfred Kummerlé (1887-1949), Brandenburg. - Commandeered by the DDR authorities in 1953 and sent to the Museum der bildenden Künste Leipzig in 1954, inv. no. 1483. - Restituted to the rightful heirs in 2012.
Literature
Susanne Heiland: Museum der bildenden Künste Leipzig. Katalog der Gemälde, Leipzig 1979, p. 150. - Dietulf Sander: Museum der bildenden Künste. Katalog der Gemälde 1995, Stuttgart 1995, p. 136, illus. 477. - Jan Nicolaisen: Niederländische Malerei 1430-1800. Museum der bildenden Künste Leipzig, Leipzig 2012, p. 31 with illus.