

A note on the Provenance:
In his Notizie... Filippo Baldinucci, a contemporary biographer of Dolci, mentions four paintings of St. Jerome by Dolci. Of these Francesca Baldassari has identified two, one painted for Agnolo Teri and another for Antonio Lorenzi.3 From further archival research she has identified several other references to paintings of St. Jerome, including one for the Abbot Eschini, one for the Bartolomei family and another for the Marchese Capponi. Baldassari identifies the present work with the Capponi picture, described by Fantozzi in 1842 as "san Girolamo in orazione, opera insigne e del più finito stile, di C. Dolci,"4it being apparently the only treatment of the subject 'insigne' ('distinguished').5 The painting is first recorded in the Capponi collection in 1767, when it was exhibited in the Accademia di San Luca, and is last documented there by Fantozzi in 1842, where it is cited as hanging in the 'quadreria'.
1. While in this collection the painting suffered several intentional scratch marks, joining in the saint’s shoulder, but harming little of the important parts of the composition. See condition report, available upon request.
2. Baldassari, under Literature, p. 52, no. 21, reproduced and pp. 101, 103, no. 72, reproduced p. 103.
3. F. Baldinucci, Notizie de' professori del disegno da Cimabue in qua, vol. V, Florence 1846 edition, p. 351.
4. "St. Jerome in Prayer, an outstanding work and in the highly finished style of Carlo Dolci."
5. See under Literature.