Saint Jerome as a Cardinal

The Master of Grossgmain, who remains unidentified, is an artist of the Austrian School. The name “Master of Grossgmain” relates to the body of work that has been attributed to him, comprising four panels of religious scenes painted for a church in Grossgmain near Salzburg. His style, however, reflects the marked influence of one of the leading Austrian 15th-century painters, Rueland Frueauf the Elder, with whom the present artist may have trained. Despite these similarities, art historians have detected certain distinguishing features between the two, such as the intense way in which the present artist used colour, the freedom with which he inserted the figures into the spatial setting, and more specific details such as a simplification of the folds of the draperies that notably differs from Frueauf’s style. Saint Jerome as a Cardinal was in the Figdor collection in Vienna and was auctioned Berlin in 1930. It entered the Rohoncz collection two years later in 1932. The panel, which was first published at the start of the 20th century, was attributed to Rueland Frueauf and was recorded as such in the catalogues of the Thyssen-Bornemisza collection until the late 1960s. Its current attribution was first proposed in 1929 by Otto Pächt who was the first to associate it with the Master of Grossgmain, an attribution adopted by Christian Salm in the 1969 catalogue of the Thyssen-Bornemisza collection. This suggestion has been upheld by other authors who have studied the painting. Saint Jerome is depicted as a cardinal and Doctor of the Church. He can be identified by his cardinal’s hat, the red colour of his garments and the open book on the desk that refers to his labours. In addition the lion refers to the legend of the saint (as well as being the symbol of the Evangelist Mark). The story of Saint Jerome and the lion was promoted through The Golden Legend. It narrates how one afternoon, Jerome and various monks were outside the monastery reading and listening to holy texts when a lion arrived with a wounded paw. Saint Jerome approached the animal, which stretched out its paw and the Saint instructed the monks to wash and examine it, resulting in a thorn being extracted. After it was cured the lion remained in the monastery as a pet and Jerome placed it in charge of the monks’ donkey. The artist presents Saint Jerome as he pauses in his labours, which are referred to in the open book on the desk. He strokes the tame lion, which rests its front paws on the saint’s knees. Jerome’s figure is constructed in a volumetric manner and the ample cardinal’s robe that he wears, with its carefully constructed folds and contours, occupies almost the entire lower half of the composition. The desk and book create a pronounced diagonal that is counterbalanced by the saint’s position on the stone bench and the plain blocks of masonry that construct the setting. The painting has been related to two others of bishop saints that have tentatively been identified as other Doctors of the Church, namely Saint Ambrose and Saint Augustine (Österreichische Galerie, Vienna). The setting in these two panels is similar to the present one, although more complex. Another work associated with this group is the Abbot Saint in Ratisbon, which has been suggested to be Saint Benedict. The two Doctors of the Church in Vienna are dated to the same year as the present panel, and this date has also been accepted for the Ratisbon panel. Mar Borobia