Saint Jerome and the Angel
Simon Vouet·c. 1622/1625
Historical Context
Simon Vouet's Saint Jerome and the Angel, painted around 1622-1625, depicts the Church Father receiving divine inspiration from an angelic messenger. This work dates from Vouet's Roman period, when he was absorbing Caravaggist influences before returning to France as the dominant painter at the court of Louis XIII. The subject of Jerome with the angel was popular in early seventeenth-century painting, combining scholarly dignity with visionary spirituality.
Technical Analysis
Vouet's oil-on-canvas technique in this Italian-period work shows strong Caravaggist influence in the dramatic side-lighting and dark background. The contrast between Jerome's aged, scholarly figure and the youthful angel is handled with confident, dynamic brushwork.
Provenance
Cardinal Carlo Barberini [d. 1704], Rome, by 1692/1704; by descent in the Barberini family, Rome;[1] (Gabriel Sonnino, New York);[2] sold 1952 to the Samuel H. Kress Foundation, New York;[3] gift 1961 to NGA. [1] The Barberini inventories include three separate paintings that have been confused in the literature: one unattributed saint with an angel playing the trumpet in a vertical format, variously called Mark or Jerome; one Saint Jerome with an angel by Vouet in a square format; and finally the horizontal format Saint Jerome with an angel holding a trumpet by Vouet that can be identified as the Gallery's picture. The vertical picture appears in both the 1648-1649 inventory of Taddeo Barberini, Principe di Palestrina (d. 1647), and the 1655 inventory of his brother, Maffeo (d. 1685), who became Pope Urban VIII. The square picture appears in Cardinal Antonio's 1671 inventory and probably in his 1672 bequests, and again in the inventory of Cardinal Carlo drawn up between 1692 and 1704. The horizontal Saint Jerome first appears only in the inventory of Cardinal Carlo; see Lavin 1975, 441, VI. inv. 92-04, 337, "Un S. Girolamo con l'angelo con tromba in mano al: p.mi 7: L:9 Cornice dorata intagliata di monsù Ouuet." ("A St. Jerome with an angel holding a trumpet, 7 palms high, 9 wide, [in a] gilded carved frame, by Mr. Vouet.") Since the horizontal and square pictures are both listed, in two separate rooms, in Carlo's inventory of 1692/1704, they are clearly two separate paintings. For the other inventories, see Marilyn Aronberg Lavin, _Seventeenth-Century Barberini Documents and Inventories of Art_, New York, 1975: V inv. 48-49, 417; VII inv. 55, 210; VI inv. 92-04, 337; IV inv. 71, 330; IV hered 72, 125; VI. inv. 92-04, 123. Active collectors, the Barberini could have acquired the painting at any moment during the 17th century, and the question of patronage for the Saint Jerome remains open. The "St Mathieu de Mr. Vouet," which Robert de Cotte reported seeing in the Barberini palace at Palestrina around 1689 has been connected with the Gallery's picture, but it could have been the square version; see Jacques Thuillier, "Pour un 'Corpus Poussinianum'," in André Chastel, ed., _Actes du colloque international Nicolas Poussin: Paris, 19-21 septembre 1958_, 2 vols., Paris, 1960: 2:205. [2] See the letter from Ettore Sestieri to William Suida, 2 February 1952, copy in NGA curatorial files. [3] See The Kress Collection Digital Archive, https://kress.nga.gov/Detail/objects/1846.
