painting (oil): ["St. Jerome"]

Saint Jerome was one of the four western Fathers of the Church and was born at Stridon in Dalmatia. His full name was Eusebius Hieronymus Sophronius. In Italian he is known as Geronimo or Girolamo. As a penitent, St. Jerome is shown during the four years he spent as a hermit in the Syrian desert. In NCM 1910-64 Saint Jerome is seen kneeling on the ground before a crucifix in a rocky setting that represents the desert wilderness. He has grey hair and a beard and is wrapped in a red cloak. His naked chest and arms are visibly emaciated; a result of his ascetic lifestyle which involved beating his breast to relieve temptation during vivid sexual hallucinations. That he beat himself with a stone, however, was an invention of later representations of Jerome from the 15th century onwards. The attributes of Saint Jerome can be seen to his right and left; the lion, the skull and book and the cardinal's hat, which refers to the post he held in Rome under Pope Damascus I. According to legend, Saint Jerome tamed a lion by pulling a thorn from its paw. Virag 19/12/2004, Between 1984 and 1985, a research assistant, Dr. Brendan Cassidy, was employed by Nottingham Castle Museum to research and write a catalogue of the foreign oil paintings in their collection. The catalogue never materialised, but drafts and notes relating to Cassidy's research can be found in the Artist Files and in the Archive at the museum. All references to Cassidy relate to these documents. The panel was restored in 1969 at Aston Hall, Birmingham, after an X-ray revealed the presence of active woodworm. The worm had eaten much of the panel, distorting the surface, and so the paint surface was transferred from the old panel and adhered to a new support of sheets of board sandwiching a waxed paper honeycomb. The panel was found to have many old restorations and overpaintings. Pentimenti, in the form of hatched shadings, are especially visible on Jerome's body. (Letter dated 3 April 1969 to david Phillips from Josephine Parry, Aston Hall) Following analysis of samples of the panel by an unnamed timber research association based in High Wycombe, the support was discovered to be made from a species of cedar wood. (Letter in file dated 28 May 1970 to David Phillips from Josephine Parry, Aston Hall, Birmingham) Examination on reverse was not possible due to secured backboarding. Virag 19/12/2004, Collection of William Graham M.P. (1817-1885); by marriage to Kenneth Augustus Muir Mackenzie from 1874; on loan to Nottingham Castle Museum (then Midland Counties Art Museum) from 1879; Given by Sir Kenneth Muir Augustus Mackenzie to Nottingham Castle Museum, 10/05/1910.