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A bearded and balding man with deeply tanned skin, dressed only in a strip of robin’s egg-blue fabric around his shoulders and hips, sits reading a book on a rock at the entrance to a craggy cave, in front of a landscape in this vertical painting. In the lower right corner of the composition, the man, Saint Jerome, faces our left in profile, his head bowed toward the open book propped on the rock near the knee farther from us. His hair and beard are parchment white, and he has a prominent brow ridge, a long, hooked nose, and sunken cheeks. His arms and legs are sinewy and his torso is muscled. The blue cloth is knotted over his left shoulder and wraps around his hips. A lion lies next to Saint Jerome in lower right corner, his face toward us with his mouth open. There is a rectangular pool lined with blocky, cream-white stones at Saint Jerome’s feet, to our left. The cave behind him, to our right, has a jagged, narrow, vertical entrance, and there are rocky outcroppings above and to our left, over the pool. A stone arch spans the top edge of the painting, enclosing the scene below. Other animals appear around Saint Jerome, including a lizard near the pool; a squirrel on the grassy top of the cave entrance; and a black bird in the barren branches of a tree growing from the rocks above the cave. On the far side of the pool, two rabbits, white and brown, touch noses on a grass-topped, low, rocky wall. There is a hill with two dark green bushes beyond that. In the distance, a cluster of tan-colored, stone buildings, some in ruins, spread down a hillside to the water’s edge. Across the water to our right, deep in the distance, white buildings line the horizon, which comes about two-thirds of the way up this painting. A few puffs of white clouds float along the waterline against a vivd, azure-blue sky above.

Giovanni Bellini

Saint Jerome Reading, 1505

West Building, Main Floor — Gallery 10

Medium

oil on linden panel

Dimensions

painted surface: 47 x 37.5 cm (18 1/2 x 14 3/4 in.)
support: 48.9 x 39.5 cm (19 1/4 x 15 9/16 in.)

framed: 62.9 x 52.9 x 6 cm (24 3/4 x 20 13/16 x 2 3/8 in.)

Credit Line

Samuel H. Kress Collection

Accession Number

1939.1.217

Artists / Makers

Giovanni Bellini (artist) Venetian, c. 1430/1435 - 1516

Image Use

This image is in the public domain.
Read our full Open Access policy for images .

Inscription

lower left: [Bellinu]s MCCCCCV

Provenance

Frederick John Monson, 5th baron Monson [1809-1841], Gatton Park, near Reigate, Surrey; by inheritance to his cousin, William John Monson, 6th baron Monson [1796-1862], Gatton Park and Burton Hall, Lincolnshire; by inheritance to his son, William John Monson, viscount Oxenbridge and 7th baron Monson [1829-1898], Burton Hall, Lincolnshire; (Monson sale, Christie, Manson & Woods, London, 12 May 1888, no. 12); purchased by Murray [probably Charles Fairfax Murray [1849-1919, London and Florence]. Charles Butler [1822-1910], London and Warren Wood, Hatfield, Hertford; purchased 1891 by Robert Henry [1850-1929] and Evelyn Holford [1856-1943] Benson, London and Buckhurst Park, Sussex; sold 1927 to (Duveen Brothers, Inc., London and New York); sold 1 October 1928 to Clarence H. Mackay [1874-1938], Roslyn, New York; [1] (Duveen Brothers, Inc., London and New York); sold May 1936 to the Samuel H. Kress Foundation, New York;[2] gift 1939 to NGA.

[1] Duveen Brothers Records, accession number 960015, Special Collections, Getty Research Institute, Los Angeles, Series I Business Records, New York Sales Lists 1922-1928.

[2] The Duveen Brothers letter confirming the sale of thirteen paintings and one sculpture, including NGA 1939.1.217, is dated 18 May 1936; the provenance is given as "Benson Coll'n" (copy in NGA curatorial files; Box 474, Folder 5, Duveen Brothers Records, accession number 960015, Research Library, The Getty Research Institute, Los Angeles). See also The Kress Collection Digital Archive, https://kress.nga.gov/Detail/objects/1853.

Associated Names

Benson, Robert Henry and Evelyn Holford
Butler, Charles
Christie, Manson & Woods, Ltd.
Duveen Brothers, Inc.
Kress Foundation, Samuel H.
Mackay, Clarence H.
Monson, 5th baron Monson, Frederick John
Monson, 6th baron Monson, William John
Monson, William John 7th Baron Monson and Viscount Oxenbridge

Exhibition History

1894: Exhibition of Venetian Art, The New Gallery, London, 1894-1895, no. 169.

1909: National Loan Exhibition, Grafton Galleries, London, 1909-1910, no. 78.

1912: A Collection of Pictures of the Early Venetian School and Other Works of Art, Burlington Fine Arts Club, London, 1912, no. 35 (no. 27 and pl. XXIII of illustrated catalogue titled Early Venetian Pictures and Other Works of Art).

1927: Loan Exhibition of the Benson Collection of Old Italian Masters, City of Manchester Art Gallery, 1927, no. 35.

1930: Exhibition of Italian Art 1200-1900, Royal Academy of Arts, London, 1930, no. 292 (no. 171 in commemorative catalogue published 1931; not in souvenir catalogue).

1938: Venetian Paintings of the 15th & 16th Centuries, M. Knoedler and Company, New York, 1938, no. 2, repro., as Saint Jerome Reading in a Landscape.

1999: Il Rinascimento a Venezia e la pittura del Nord ai tempi di Bellini Dürer Tiziano [Renaissance Venice and the North: Crosscurrents in the Time of Bellini, Dürer, and Titian], Palazzo Grassi, Venice, 1999-2000, no. 121, repro.

2006: Bellini, Giorgione, Titian, and the Renaissance of Venetian Painting, National Gallery of Art, Washington, D.C.; Kunsthistorisches Museum, Vienna, 2006-2007, no. 22, repro.

2017: Giovanni Bellini: Landscapes of Faith in Renaissance Venice, J. Paul Getty Museum, Los Angeles, 2017-2018.

Bibliography

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1895: Berenson, Bernard. Venetian Painting, Chiefly before Titian, at the Exhibition of Venetian Art. London, 1895: 19, 24.

1895: Gronau, Georg. "Correspondence d'Angleterre." Gazette des Beaux-Arts 13 (1895): 259.

1895: Seidlitz, W. "Die Austellung venezianischer Kunst in der New Gallery zu London im Winter 1894-95." Repertorium für Kunstwissénschaft 18 (1895): 210-211 (209-216).

1898: Ffoulkes, Costanza. "L'esposizione dell'arte veneta a Londra." Archivio storico dell'arte 1 (1898) ser. 2: 73, 76 (69-86).

1901: Berenson, Bernard. The Study and Criticism of Italian Art. London, 1901: 113.

1901: Fry, Roger. Giovanni Bellini. New York and London, 1901: 46, note 1.

1905: Reinach, Salomon. Répertoire de peintures du moyen âge et de la Renaissance (1280-1580). 6 vols. Paris, 1905-1923: 1(1905):561.

1907: Cust, Lionel. "La Collection de M. R.-H. Benson." Les Arts 70 (October 1907): 3 (2-32).

1909: Brockwell, Maurice, and Herbert Cook. A Catalogue of the Pictures and Drawings in the National Loan Exhibition. London, 1909: 120, no. 78.

1910: Fry, Roger. "La mostra di antichi dipinti alle 'Grafton Galleries' di Londra." Rassenga d'Arte 10, no. 3 (March 1910): 36.

1910: Monod, François. "L'exposition nationale des maitres anciens." Gazette des Beaux-Arts 3, no. 631 (January 1910): 59 (43-65).

1912: Crowe, Joseph Archer, and Giovanni Battista Cavalcaselle. A History of Painting in North Italy. Edited by Tancred Borenius. 3 vols. London, 1912: 1:273 note.

1914: Borenius, Tancred. Catalogue of Italian Pictures at 16 South Street, Park Lane, London and Buckhurst in Sussex Collected by Robert and Evelyn Benson. London, 1914: 143-144, no. 73.

1916: Berenson, Bernard. Venetian Painting in America. New York, 1916: 238-239, fig. 99.

1923: Marle, Raimond van. The Development of the Italian Schools of Painting. 19 vols. The Hague, 1923-1938: 17(1935):313-314, 515.

1924: Venturi, Adolfo. L'arte a San Girolamo. Milan, 1924: 61-62, fig. 44.

1928: Gronau, Georg. Spatwerke des Giovanni Bellini. Strasbourg, 1928: 20, 24, fig. 21. (Italian ed. "Le opere tarde di Giovanni Bellini." Part 2: Pinacotheca 1, no. 3 [1928]: 122, 127, fig. 20.)

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1929: Cortissoz, Royal. "The Clarence H. Mackay Collection." International Studio 94, no. 391 (December 1929): 34, repro.

1930: Gronau, Georg. Giovanni Bellini. New York, 1930: 215, no. 159.

1931: Bainiel, Lord David Lindsay, and Kenneth Clark. A Commemorative Catalogue of the Exhibition of Italian Art Held in the Galleries of the Royal Academy, Burlington House, London, January-March 1930. 2 vols. Oxford and London, 1931: 1:59, no. 171.

1931: Frankfurter, Alfred. "Masterpieces of Landscape Painting in American collections." The Fine Arts 18, no. 1 (December 1931): 22-23, repro.

1932: Berenson, Bernard. Italian Pictures of the Renaissance: A List of the Principal Artists and Their Works with an Index of Places. Oxford, 1932: 71. Italian ed., 1936: 61.

1933: Venturi, Lionello. Italian Paintings in America. 3 vols. New York and Milan, 1933: 2:pl. 401 and note.

1935: Dussler, Luitpold. Giovanni Bellini. Frankfurt, 1935: 150.

1937: Gamba, Carlo. Giovanni Bellini. Milan, 1937: 147, fig. 159 (French ed. translated by Jean Chuzeville, Paris, n.d.: 157, fig. 159).

1938: Breuning, Margaret. "New York Views the Venetians." Magazine of Art 31, no. 5 (May 1938): 292-293, repro.

1938: Frankfurter, Alfred. "Venetian Holiday: XV and XVI Centuries in Review." Art News 36, no. 29 (16 April 1938): 10-11, repro.

1938: Friedlaender, Walter. "Venetian Paintings of the XV and XVI Centuries." Art in America 26, no. 3 (July 1938): 127.

1940: McBride, Ruth Q. "Old Masters in a New National Gallery." The National Geographic Magazine 78, no. 1 (July 1940): 32, pl. 9.

1941: Duveen Brothers. Duveen Pictures in Public Collections of America. New York, 1941: no. 89, repro.

1941: Preliminary Catalogue of Paintings and Sculpture. National Gallery of Art, Washington, 1941: 20, no. 328.

1942: Book of Illustrations. National Gallery of Art, Washington, 1942: 246, repro. 68.

1944: Frankfurter, Alfred M. The Kress Collection in the National Gallery. New York, 1944: 51, repro.

1945: Hendy, Philip, and Ludwig Goldscheider. Giovanni Bellini. Oxford and London, 1945: 34, pl. 107.

1945: Paintings and Sculpture from the Kress Collection. National Gallery of Art, Washington, 1945 (reprinted 1947, 1949): 94, repro.

1948: Kennedy, Ruth Wedgwood. The Renaissance Painter's Garden. Oxford, 1948: no. 59, repro.

1949: Dussler, Luitpold. Giovanni Bellini. Vienna, 1949: 100, pl. 138.

1953: Coletti, Luigi. Pittura veneta del Quattrocento. Novara, 1953: 67, pl. 144.

1957: Berenson, Bernard. Italian Pictures of the Renaissance. 2 vols. London, 1957: 36.

1959: Paintings and Sculpture from the Samuel H. Kress Collection. National Gallery of Art, Washington, 1959: 143, repro.

1959: Pallucchini, Rodolfo. Giovanni Bellini. Milan, 1959: 102, 153-154, fig. 198. (English ed., translated by R. Boothroyd, London, 1962: 105-106, 158-159, fig. 198.)

1960: Newton, Eric. The Arts of Man. Greenwich, Connecticut, 1960: 125-126, fig. 57.

1961: Davies, Martin. National Gallery Catalogues. The Earlier Italian Schools. London, 1961: 71-72.

1961: Walker, John, Guy Emerson, and Charles Seymour. Art Treasures for America: An Anthology of Paintings & Sculpture in the Samuel H. Kress Collection. London, 1961: 58, repro. pl. 53, color repro. pl. 52.

1962: Heinemann, Fritz. Giovanni Bellini e i belliniani. 2 vols. Venice, 1962: 1:67, no. 226; 2:fig. 103.

1963: Bottari, Stefano. Tutta la pittura di Giovanni Bellini. 2 vols. Milan, 1963: 2:26, pl. 62, 63.

1964: Bonicatti, Maurizio. Aspetti dell'Umanesimo nella pittura veneta dal 1455 al 1515. Rome, 1964: 114-115.

1964: Meiss, Millard. Giovanni Bellini's 'St. Francis' in The Frick Collection. Princeton, 1964: 19.

1965: Summary Catalogue of European Paintings and Sculpture. National Gallery of Art, Washington, 1965: 11.

1967: Jungblut, Renate. Hieronymus Darstellung und Verehrung eines Kirchenvaters. Bamberg, 1967: 162-163, 296, no. 216.

1968: National Gallery of Art. European Paintings and Sculpture, Illustrations. Washington, 1968: 5, repro.

1968: Robertson, Giles. Giovanni Bellini. Oxford, 1968: 77-78, 115, 129, pl. 58b. Reprint, New York, 1981.

1968: Shapley, Fern Rusk. Paintings from the Samuel H. Kress Collection: Italian Schools, XV-XVI Century. London, 1968: 39-40, fig. 96.

1969: Pignatti, Terisio. L'opera completa di Giovanni Bellini. Milan, 1969: 106, pl. 43.

1972: Fletcher, Jennifer. "The Provenance of Bellini's Frick 'St. Francis'." The Burlington Magazine 114, no. 829 (April 1972): 212.

1972: Fredericksen, Burton B., and Federico Zeri. Census of Pre-Nineteenth Century Italian Paintings in North American Public Collections. Cambridge, Mass., 1972: 23, 409, 645.

1975: European Paintings: An Illustrated Summary Catalogue. National Gallery of Art, Washington, 1975: 20, repro.

1979: Shapley, Fern Rusk. Catalogue of the Italian Paintings. 2 vols. National Gallery of Art, Washington, 1979: 1:35-36; 2:pl. 23.

1980: Friedmann, Herbert. A Bestiary for Saint Jerome. Washington, D.C., 1980: 211, 213, 268, 286, 287, 296, 317, figs. 22-25.

1983: Lattanzi, Marco, and Marica Mercalli. “Il tema del San Girolamo nell’eremo nella cultura veneta tra Quattrocento e Cinquecento.” In Bruno Contardi and Augusto Gentili, eds. Il S. Girolamo di Lorenzo Lotto a Castel S. Angelo. Exh. cat. Museo Nazionale di Castel Sant’Angelo, Rome, 1983: 86, 90-93, fig. 52.

1984: Walker, John. National Gallery of Art, Washington. Rev. ed. New York, 1984: 112, no. 87, color repro.

1985: European Paintings: An Illustrated Catalogue. National Gallery of Art, Washington, 1985: 39, repro.

1985: Ford, Brinsley. "Pictures lost to the Nation." NACF Magazine 29 (Christmas 1985): 17.

1985: Gentili, Augusto, and Marco Lattanzi. "Girolamo nel desserto: l'ideologia, il modello, le varianti." In I giardini di contemplazione: Lorenzo Lotto, 1503/1512. Agusto Gentili, ed. Rome, 1985: 164-166, fig. 94.

1987: Pujmanová, Olga. Italské gotické a renesanciní obrazy: v ceskoslovenskych sbirkách. Exh. cat. Národní galery, Sternbersky palác, Praque, 1987: 47-48.

1987: Russo, Daniel. Saint Jérome en Italie: Étude d’iconographie et de spiritualité XIIIe-XVe siècle. Paris and Rome, 1987: 203, note 9.

1988: Rosand, David. "Giorgione, Venice, and the Pastoral Vision." In Places of Delight: The Pastoral Landscape. Exh. cat. The Phillips Collection, Washington, D.C., 1988: 65, fig. 49.

1988: Wiebel, Christiane. Askese und Endlichkeitsdemut in der italienischen Renaissance. Weinheim, 1988: 102-103, fig. 47.

1989: Goffen, Rona. Giovanni Bellini. New Haven and London, 1989: 260, 290.

1990: Olivari, Mariolina. Giovanni Bellini. Florence, 1990: 47, fig. 63.

1991: Gentili, Augusto. "Giovanni Bellini, la bottega, i quadri di devozione." Venezia Cinquecento 1, no. 2 (July-December 1991): 41, fig. 12.

1991: Humfrey, Peter. "Two lost 'St. Jerome' altarpieces by Giovanni Bellini." Venezia Cinquecento 1, no. 2 (July-December 1991): 109, fig. 3.

1991: Morandotti, Alessandro. "La fortuna collezionistica della pittura gotica e rinascimentale fra Ottocento e Novecento." In Mauro Natale, ed. Pittura italiana dal '300 al '500. Milan, 1991: 43.

1992: Maiorino, Giancarlo. Leonardo da Vinci. University Park, Pennsylvania, 1992: 34, fig. 5.

1992: Tempestini, Anchise. Giovanni Bellini: catalogo completo dei dipinti. Florence, 1992: 256-257, no. 91, color repro.

1993: One Hundred Saints. Their Lives and Likenesses Drawn from Butler's "Lives of the Saints" and Great Works of Western Art. Boston, 1993: 127-129, repro.

1994: Echols, Robert. "Cima and the Theme of Saint Jerome in the Wilderness." Venezia Cinquecento IV, no. 8 (July-December 1994): 47-69, figs. 4, 12.

1995: Fleming, William. Arts and Ideas. 9th ed. Fort Worth, 1995: 349, fig. 12.10.

1995: Paris, Jean. L'atelier Bellini. Paris, 1995: 234, 237-238, fig. 169.

1996: Donahue, M. Patricia. Nursing, The Finest Art: An Illustrated History. St Louis, 1996: 85, color repro.

1997: Tempestini, Achise. Giovanni Bellini. Milan, 1997: 77, 226-227, no. 107.

1998: Christiansen, Keith. "The View From Italy." In Maryan W. Ainsworth and Keith Christiansen, eds. From Van Eyck to Bruegel: Early Netherlandish Painting in the Metropolitan Museum of Art. Exh. cat. Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York, 1998: 51-53, fig. 33.

1998: Faxon, Alicia Craig. "Reading." In Encyclopedia of Comparative Iconography. 2 vols. Edited by Helene E. Roberts. Chicago and London, 1998: 2:769.

2003: Boskovits, Miklós, and David Alan Brown, et al. Italian Paintings of the Fifteenth Century. The Systematic Catalogue of the National Gallery of Art. Washington, D.C., 2003: 70-74, color repro.

2004: Hand, John Oliver. National Gallery of Art: Master Paintings from the Collection. Washington and New York, 2004: 38, no. 26, color repro.

2006: Fahy, Everett. "Early Italian paintings in Washington and Philadelphia." The Burlington Magazine 148, no. 1241 (August 2006): 539.

2008: Lucco, Mauro, and Giovanni Carlo Federico Villa, eds. Giovanni Bellini. Exh. cat. Scuderie del Quirinale, Rome, 2008: 278, 310.

2008: Pujmanová, Olga, with the assistance of Petr Pribyl. Italian Painting c. 1330-1550. I. National Gallery in Prague. II. Collections in the Czech Republic. Illustrated Summary catalogue. Prague, 2008: 237.

2016: Brisman, Sheila. Albrecht Dürer & the Epistolary Mode of Address. Chicago, 2016: 120-121, color fig. 4.9.

2019: Lucco, Mauro, Peter Humfrey, and Giovanni C.F. Villa. Giovanni Bellini: Catalogo ragionato. Treviso, 2019: 547-548, cat. 166.