(Genoa 1635–1676 Venice)
The Vision of Saint Jerome,
oil on canvas, 115 x 100.5 cm, framed

Provenance:
Collection Scotto di Castelbianco;
and thence by descent to the present owner

We are grateful to Camillo Manzitti for confirming the attribution on the basis of a photograph.

The present painting represents Saint Jerome half-length: the Father of the Church is portrayed according to tradition, as a hermit intent on the translation of the Bible, holding a skull emblematic of penitence. The figure emerges from the surrounding darkness and raises his gaze toward the trumpet of the Last Judgement.

Other autograph versions of this subject are in public and private collections including one sold by Dorotheum 9 April 2014, lot 713 and another in the Cleveland Museum of Art (inv. no. 1951.334) which differs from the present painting in its emotional charge and dynamism and in the surprise and awe of the Saint. By contrast the present Saint Jerome calls for reflection and restraint. The broad, brief and taut handling of the brush can be compared to another work by Langetti: The old fortuneteller with an armillary sphere (see M. Stefani Mantovanelli, Giovanni Battista Langetti, in: Saggi e memorie di Storia dell’Arte, Florence 1990, p. 73).

Langetti, a native of Genoa, moved to Rome as a youth where he trained in the studio of Pietro da Cortona (1596/97-1669). He was greatly influenced by the Neapolitan masters Jusepe de Ribera (1591–1652) and Luca Giordano (1635–1705) as is demonstrated by the strong chiaroscuro and the sombre setting of his paintings that frequently depict saints, philosophers, heroes and prophets. Alongside his colleagues of the so-called ‘tenebrist’ artists, Johann Carl Loth (1632–1698) and Francesco Rosa (1635–1710), Langetti subsequently introduced these Neapolitan pictorial innovations to Venice where he remained for the rest of his life, playing a significant role in the development of Venetian painting during the second half of the seventeenth century.