Study for St Jerome

Author: Gert Jan van der Sman

Several major commissions were awaiting completion when Domenico Ghirlandaio died on 11 January 1494, among them a monumental altarpiece for Pandolfo IV Malatesta (1475-1534), signore of Rimini, and a panel with the Virgin and Child and Sts John the Evangelist, Francis, Jerome and John the Baptist for the convent church of San Francesco in San Casciano Val di Pesa (fig.).^[1] Domenico’s brother Davide took over the leadership of the workshop and ensured that those paintings were completed. He had several assistants working with and for him at the time, including Benedetto Ghirlandaio (1458-1497), Bastiano Mainardi (c.1460-1513) and Francesco Granacci.

This drawing is a preliminary study for the kneeling Jerome in the panel destined for San Casciano. The altarpiece was removed from the church in 1810 and ended up in Berlin in 1821, where it was destroyed during the Second World War.^[2] It consisted of very specific components. The Virgin, standing saints and cherubim were executed in Domenico Ghirlandaio’s characteristic tempera technique, whereas the kneeling Sts Francis and Jerome were largely done in oil paint. One finds a similar variation in techniques in the Rimini altarpiece, with the donor portraits in oils being regarded as anomalous.

Dalli Regoli (1968), Fahy (1969) and Venturini (2000) wanted to associate the name of Fra Bartolommeo (1472-1517, Baccio della Porta) with the passages in oils of the San Casciano painting. They traced several drawings that are related to the figures of Jerome and Francis, including the Rotterdam sheet with the upper body of the Church Father in prayer, which may have been cropped at the bottom. In it they recognized the hand of the young Baccio, who was just starting out on his career.

Their conclusion, though, is ruled out by research into the drawn oeuvre of the young Fra Bartolommeo. None of his early figure studies display marked similarities to the one in Rotterdam. The saint’s shoulder, head, arms and hands are only indicated sketchily. The detailing of the folds of his cloak displays the artist’s sensitivity to the effects of light and shade. Yet those passages have little relief. Fra Bartolommeo’s wonderful study for the angel in The Annunciation (1497) in Volterra has fewer schematic contours, as well as far more depth in the drapery folds.^[3] In the early pen drawings, too, the volumes are defined with greater clarity. Added to that, not one of the early sources makes any mention of Baccio studying in the workshop of Domenico and Davide Ghirlandaio.

It is for those reasons that an attribution to Francesco Granacci is preferable. His early output contains two indirect points of contact. In the first place, his small panel with The Miracle of St Vincent Ferrer has a similar angularity in the rendering of the faces and necks.^[4] Secondly, the earliest drawing that can definitely be attributed to Granacci is in the same technique of metalpoint and white heightening on grey prepared paper.^[5]

Two more drawings can be associated with the San Casciano altarpiece.^[6] The one in Florence with the face of St Jerome is particularly worth mentioning.^[7] It is a fine study that very probably incorporates the portrait of Giuliano Castrucci, the local benefactor of the San Francesco convent and possible donor of the altarpiece.

There is a dark pink preparation on the back of the Rotterdam sheet. A faint sketch of a kneeling angel and a standing figure can be made out with considerable difficulty. Cadogan (1983) believes that that sketch is connected with Fra Bartolommeo’s Annunciation in Volterra, but the resemblance is too general to draw any conclusion about the authorship of the Rotterdam drawing. For example, there is a striking difference in size between the angel and the standing woman, which casts doubt on her identification as the Virgin.