Circle of Pieter Coecke van Aelst

Anonymous sale, Amsterdam, Sotheby's, 15 November 1983, lot 66 (as Flemish school, 16th century), for 9,500 Dutch Guilders;
Anonymous sale, Amsterdam, Christie's, 9 November 1998, lot 98 (as studio of Joos van Cleve).

The panel is cradled and consists of three vertical planks. One vertical join runs though the saint's sleeve and book; to the right of this a vertical split is visible from approximately halfway down to the lower edge. There are also two small surface cracks running vertically down from the upper edge, each measuring approximately 4 cm. The painting has been cleaned fairly recently and is in good overall condition. Retouchings are confined to filling in the losses along the length of the vertical join and a few isolated spots: on the hat, in the beard and the flame of the candle on the shelf beside the crucifix. The majority of the paint surface is very well preserved. There is one damage on the skull, showing as an indented, whitish circular area, approx. 4 mm in diameter (noted on 6.5.15, 10.30 am).
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The composition ultimately derives from Albrecht Dürer's celebrated work of 1521, now in the Museu nacional de arte antiga, Lisbon.¹ Of the numerous adaptations of the subject by Netherlandish painters, this St Jerome derives elements from works by Joos van Cleve and Pieter Coecke van Aelst. This design exists in several versions, which appear to depend in part on Joos van Cleve’s composition in the Harvard University Art Museums, Cambridge, Mass.² Absent from the Cambridge panel, however, is one of the principal features of this painting: the intricate clock. Common to all the versions are the still-life objects that protrude from the edge of the table.³

Of the compositions given by Marlier to Pieter Coecke van Aelst in his monograph on the artist, two in particular share certain features with this larger work. The first is a painting formerly with J. O. Leegenhoek, Paris, and in a private collection, USA, by 1988.⁴ Somewhat narrower but similarly composed, it too shows a view onto a landscape that incorporates a small scene from the saint’s life as a penitent. The second picture, recorded by Marlier as formerly in the collection of L.R. Piovano, Turin, also has elements in common with this composition, in particular the vigorously modelled head of St Jerome.⁵ Both feature an intricate clock, which in this panel is skilfully rendered in grisaille. A similar clock also appears in a St Jerome in his Study that sold recently in New York as Coecke.⁶ The popularity of the design, which replaces the colourful architectural elements of its prototypes with more sculptural embellishments, is attested by the number of versions that survive.

1. See F. Anzelewsky, Albrecht Dürer, 2 vols, Berlin 1991, vol. I, pp. 263–65, cat. no. 162, reproduced vol. II, fig. 176.

2. See J. O. Hand, Joos Van Cleve. The Complete Paintings, New Haven and London 2004, p. 161, no. 78, reproduced fig. 95 (as Joos van Cleve and workshop).

3. Three panels come close to the present version and, broadly speaking, all follow the structure of Joos van Cleve’s composition, albeit with a different disposition of objects, simplified architectural elements and the addition of the clock; they are: 1) 97.8 x 75 cm.; sold in these Rooms as follower of Joos van Cleve, 9 July 1998, lot 154, for £14,950; RKD no. 48198; 2) 95 x 76 cm.; Dr Otto Fröhlich, Wenen, with a different landscape; RKD no. 42170; 3) 108 x 78 cm.; whereabouts unknown, that in the saint’s physiognomy and landscape setting most closely resembles this painting; RKD no. 52995.

4. Panel, 91 x 66 cm.; G. Marlier, La Renaissance flamande. Pierre Coeck d'Alost, Brussels 1966, p. 256, fig. 201. Offered for sale New York, Sotheby’s, 14 January 1998, lot 61.

5. Panel, 93 x 68 cm.; Marlier 1966, p. 255, fig. 199. 

6. New York, Christie’s, 28 January 2015, lot 104, for $665,000 USD. Coecke’s skills as a designer of decorative objects are discussed in the catalogue of a recent exhibition held at the Metropolitan Museum of Art; see S. Alteens in Grand Design: Pieter Coecke van Aelst and Renaissance Tapestry, exh. cat., New York, Metropolitan Museum of Art, 2014, pp. 82–84.