(Venice ? 1500–1564 Padua)
The Penitent Saint Jerome,
oil on canvas, 102 x 89.5 cm, unframed

Provenance:
art market, Germany;
where acquired by the present owner

We are grateful to Mauro Lucco for endorsing the attribution of the present painting on the basis of a photograph. He dates this work to circa 1535–1537.

Domenico Campagnola was probably born in Venice and at a young age he was adopted by the engraver and painter Giulio Campagnola, whose name he assumed and by whom he was initially trained. He was particularly interested in engraving and his independent career began in 1517–1518 with a group of engravings and woodcuts. Domenico executed his paintings in an unusually fluid and sketchy technique, preferring pastoral and religious subjects reminiscent of the atmospheric poetic images of Giorgione. He was mainly influenced by Titian and Pordenone and it is thought that he had access to Titian’s workshop, or may also have been a pupil of Titian.

From the early 1520s onwards Domenico Campagnola was based in Padua, executing frescoes and panel paintings for churches and palaces. Amongst his most important works are the fresco of Joachim and Anna in the Scuola del Carmine in Padua and the frescoes in Santa Maria in Vanzo. Later, influences of Moretto and the Brescian masters can also be seen, for example in the tondi with depictions of prophets (Gallerie dell’Accademia, Venice, 1531). In 1533 Campagnola was commissioned to paint the fresco depicting Bernardino da Feltre in the Palazzo del Monte di Pietà in Padua. Between 1536 and 1545 he created parts of the fresco cycles in the Oratory of San Rocco in Padua and in the Sala dei Giganti in Palazzo Liviano. From 1541 onwards, his works, such as the Baptism of Saint Justina (Musei Civici, Padua), acquire greater luminosity due to his collaboration with Salviati, who was working in Padua at the time. The frescoes in the apse of Praglia Abbey and his works for San Giovanni di Verdara are of great skill.

Campagnola’s landscapes are his most influential artistic legacy, and the present painting is a beautiful example of his skills in this genre. The viewer’s gaze is drawn from the saint in the foreground to the hilly terrain and the dominating mountains on the horizon. The foreground is raised, providing a view of a small church and jagged peaks beyond. The background landscape is reminiscent of the Remondini engraving conserved in the Museo Civico di Bassano del Grappa (inv. no. I-15-24). This panoramic landscape was a style that Campagnola commonly used in later works, for example in the painting of the Good Samaritan in the Coral Gables Museum, Florida, from the 1950s.