Attributed to Jacopo Bellini

Lugano, Villa Favorita, Fondazione Thyssen-Bornemisza, 'Manifestatori delle cose miracolose', Arte italiana del '300 e '400 da collezioni in Svizzera e nel Liechtenstein, 7 April - 30 June 1991, no. 94 (as Jacopo Bellini).

G. Freuler, 'Manifestatori delle cose miracolose', Arte italiana del '300 e '400 da collezioni in Svizzera e nel Liechtenstein, exhibition catalogue, Einiedeln 1991, pp. 238-40, cat. no. 94, reproduced in colour (as Jacopo Bellini).

The panel is flat and stable, within an engaged frame. There is an old vertical 7 cm. split running up from the lower edge, at the lower right. The head and flesh of Saint Jerome are badly worn and have been substantially retouched, as has much of his drapery. There are small areas of retouchings in the background around the hut, and on either side and at the foot of the crucifix, as well as a small spot in the sky. These are on top of an earlier campaign of restoration in which wear to the shadows in the rocks has also been reinforced. The gold has been repaired around the top of the cross.
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The attribution was first proposed by Freuler at the time of the 1991 exhibition. The painting may be compared to Jacopo Bellini's similar panel depicting Saint Jerome in the Museo di Castelvecchio in Verona, which dates to around 1460 and where the physiognomy of the saint is very close.¹ The distinctive rocky landscape finds echoes in two drawings by Jacopo in the Louvre, both also depicting Saint Jerome in the wilderness.²

1. See. C. Eisler, The Genius of Jacopo Bellini, New York 1988,  p. 526, reproduced p. 70, fig. 60;
2. Idem, p. 496, cat. nos. 19v and 23v, reproduced pp. 422-23, plates 276 and 277.