Artist: Marinus Van Reymerswale (Attributed To)
Date: 1545
Size: 81 x 109 cm
Technique: Oil On Panel
The church father Jerome worked from 382 to 384 as the secretary to Pope Damasus I, for whom he revised the translations of the gospels and psalms into Latin. After Damasus’s death Jerome retired to Bethlehem, where he headed a monastic community. It was here that he revised the existing Latin translation of the Old Testament and wrote biblical commentaries. He also composed a number of polemical letters and writings.8 St Jerome held a great appeal for humanist scholars, who sometimes had themselves portrayed as this father of the church.9 Here he is shown with his cardinal’s hat hanging on the wall in reference to his position under Pope Damasus in Rome (although the office of cardinal did not yet exist), and with a skull, books and extinguished candle as symbols of the fleeting nature of life. On the lectern is an illuminated manuscript with a miniature of the Last Judgement on the left-hand page. The figures in the miniature follow Albrecht Dürer’s woodcut of the same subject in the Small Passion series (B. 51/M.160; RP-P-OB-1356). The scene of the Last Judgement is yet another allusion to the theme of transience, and was often associated with a penitent St Jerome in the late middle ages.10 St Jerome was one of the few subjects depicted by Van Reymerswale, and he did so in several versions with many repetitions. It is usually assumed that they are based on the St Jerome that Albrecht Dürer painted during his stay in Antwerp in 1521.11 The marked compositional similarities between Dürer’s St Jerome and Van Reymerswale composition in Berlin tend to bear this out.12 Unlike Dürer, who portrayed the saint as a melancholic, Van Reymerswale’s Jerome is pointing with his left index finger at the skull, underscoring the memento mori motif along with the extinguished candle and The Last Judgement. The Rijksmuseum painting belongs to a cluster of 16 very similar to identical compositions, 11 of which Friedländer included in his catalogue.13 The St Jerome in his Study in Madrid, which is signed ‘Mdad me fecit’ (fig. a), is regarded as the most important version.14 It bears a date, but there is disagreement about its reading, which is interpreted as 1521, 1551 and 1541.15 A second version in the Prado is also signed (‘Marinus me fecit’) and dated either 1541 or 1547.16 The Rijksmuseum’s St Jerome in his Study is part of a subgroup of four or five works of roughly the same size (approx. 80 x 110 cm) which are distinguished from the others by the inclusion of the cardinals’ hat on the wall, the different rendering of the saint’s hood, and the absence of panelling on the rear wall and a door standing ajar. One version of this subgroup, signed ‘Marinus me fecit’ and dated 1541, is in Antwerp (fig. b), and two others are in Vienna17 and Montreal.18 The autograph nature and chronology of the different versions of St Jerome in his Study, including the one in the Rijksmuseum, are a matter of debate. The 1541 date on the Antwerp version is the only one that is generally accepted. Van Puyvelde regarded the Amsterdam panel as a good, autograph copy of the dated work in Antwerp.19 Marlier, too, rated these two the highest, alongside the Vienna version and the two in the Prado.20 The recently cleaning of the Rijksmuseum panel revealed Van Reymerswale’s distinctive precise and draughtsman-like style in the well-preserved areas, such as the painted manuscript and the papers and skull in the foreground. Here its qualities match those of the Antwerp version of 1541. Although it is perfectly possible that such repetitions were executed by a capable workshop assistant, nothing is known about any assistants, so the autograph nature of the Amsterdam painting cannot be ruled out. The dated versions of Van Reymerswale’s St Jeromes and the dendrochronology give a likely date of between 1535 and 1545. (L. Hendrikman/J.P. Filedt Kok)
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