(Siena 1571–1639)
Saint Jerome writing,
oil on canvas, 112.5 x 84 cm, framed

Provenance:
Private European collection

We are grateful to Gianni Papi for suggesting the attribution after the examination of the present painting in the original.

This painting is a previously unpublished work by Rutilio Manetti, dating from his artistic maturity and as such it is a significant addition to his oeuvre. The composition depicts Saint Jerome, intent on transcribing the Holy Scriptures, which according to tradition he translated from Greek into Latin. The saint is portrayed as an elderly scholar with the traditional attributes of a skull, the symbol of the transience of life, and a lion in the background.

The painting can be compared to Manetti’s Saint Jerome supported by two Angels in the Monte dei Paschi di Siena collection, signed and dated ‘RUTI.US f, 1628’ (see A. Bagnoli, Rutilio Manetti: 1571-1639, exhibition catalogue, Florence 1978, pp. 117, 51). A careful study reveals that Manetti painted the arms, the folds in the skin and the area with the skull and books in a comparable manner. Stylistic similarities can also be discerned in The Holy Family in the Pinacoteca Comunale, Faenza (inv. no. 8), in the white drapery, which can be compared to the saint’s robe in the present painting, beneath his red cloak.

Rutilio Manetti was one of the first Sienese artists to adopt painterly innovations derived from Federico Barocci, showing an interest in the depiction of human emotion with graceful rendered figures, such as the Saint Jerome in the present painting. Manetti’s first documented paintings date from 1597 and were executed in the Sala del Concistoro in the Palazzo Pubblico, Siena, under the guidance of his masters, Francesco Vanni and Ventura Salimbeni.

It was only around the 1620s that Manetti’s painterly style began to evolve in the direction of Caravaggism, the period to which the present painting can be dated.