(Bassano del Grappa 1566–1621 Venice)
A fire,
oil on canvas, 116 x 175 cm, framed

The present painting reiterates, with some important variants, the composition of the painting executed by Jacopo Bassano between 1585 and 1586, currently preserved at The John and Mable Ringling Museum of Art, Sarasota.
The first variant on Jacopo’s composition is the male figure in the foreground, holding a barrel in his hands. Major compositional differences from Jacopo’s painting are visible in the middleground, where a burning house is missing, the peasants are depicted in different poses, the landscape on the left displays fruit bearing branches and the sky is overcast with thick layers of dark clouds.
In the 15th and 16th centuries, the four elements were accompanied by allegories of the four temperaments: water - phlegmatic, fire - choleric, air - sanguine, earth - melancholic. Jacopo Bassano modified this traditional iconography, creating a link between each element and a matching activity in everyday life. He painted compositions in which figures are depicted during their work in an open landscape.

Jacopo’s composition was repeated by his sons Francesco and Gerolamo, as also shown by an inventory dated 1621. The colour palette of the present painting focuses on brown tones, modulating some areas with lighter shades. The available sources suggest that Gerolamo had a role as an imitator and copyist in his father’s studio. Similar brushwork as in the present painting is also detectable in a work executed by Gerolamo in 1598 Saint Lucy and Saint Martin with the beggar (formerly the parish church of San Martino in Campese, now Museo Civico di Bassano del Grappa), which also displays a similar execution of the clouds and comparable deep green hues. For these reasons, the present painting can be dated to between the last decade of the 16th century and the first decade of the 17th century.