Summary for Saint Jerome and the Angel

KRESS COLLECTION DIGITAL ARCHIVE

Simon Vouet, 1590-1649 Saint Jerome and the Angel

KRESS CATALOGUE NUMBER IDENTIFIER K1891 1846

ARTIST NATIONALITY Vouet, Simon, 1590-1649 French

DATE MEDIUM c. 1622/1625 oil on canvas

TYPE OF OBJECT Painting

DIMENSIONS 144.8 x 179.8 cm (57 x 70 13/16 in)

LOCATION National Gallery of Art, Washington, District of Columbia

PROVENANCE Cardinal Carlo Barberini [d. 1704], Rome, by 1692/1704; by descent in the Barberini family, Rome; [1] (Gabriel Sonnino, New York); [2] sold 1952 to the Samuel H. Kress Foundation, New York; gift 1961 to NGA. [1] The Barberini inventories include three separate paintings that have been confused in the literature: one unattributed saint with an angel playing the trumpet in a vertical format, variously called Mark or Jerome; one Saint Jerome with an angel by Vouet in a square format; and finally the horizontal format Saint Jerome with an angel holding a trumpet by Vouet that can be identified as the Gallery's picture. The vertical picture appears in both the 1648-1649 inventory of Taddeo Barberini, Principe di Palestrina (d. 1647), and the 1655 inventory of his brother, Maffeo (d. 1685), who became Pope Urban VIII. The square picture appears in Cardinal Antonio's 1671 inventory and probably in his 1672 bequests, and again in the inventory of Cardinal Carlo drawn up between 1692 and 1704. The horizontal Saint Jerome first appears only in the inventory of Cardinal Carlo; see Lavin 1975, 441, VI. inv. 92-04, 337, "Un S. Girolamo con l'angelo con tromba in mano al: p.mi 7: L:9 Cornice dorata intagliata di monsù Ouuet." ("A St. Jerome with an angel holding a trumpet, 7 palms high, 9 wide, [in a] gilded carved frame, by Mr. Vouet.") Since the horizontal and square pictures are both listed, in two separate rooms, in Carlo's inventory of 1692/1704, they are clearly two separate paintings. For the other inventories, see Marilyn Aronberg Lavin, Seventeenth- Century Barberini Documents and Inventories of Art, New York, 1975: V inv. 48-49, 417; VII inv. 55, 210; VI inv. 92-04, 337; IV inv. 71, 330; IV hered 72, 125; VI. inv. 92-04, 123. Active collectors, the Barberini could have acquired the painting at any moment

NATIONAL GALLERY OF ART, WASHINGTON, DC, GALLERY ARCHIVES Page 1 KRESS COLLECTION DIGITAL ARCHIVE during the 17th century, and the question of patronage for the Saint Jerome remains open. The "St Mathieu de Mr. Vouet," which Robert de Cotte reported seeing in the Barberini palace at Palestrina around 1689 has been connected with the Gallery's picture, but it could have been the square version; see Jacques Thuillier, "Pour un 'Corpus Poussinianum'," in André Chastel, ed., Actes du colloque international Nicolas Poussin: Paris, 19-21 septembre 1958, 2 vols., Paris, 1960: 2:205. [2] See the letter from Ettore Sestieri to William Suida, 2 February 1952, copy in NGA curatorial files.

ACCESSION NUMBER 1961.9.52

KRESS NUMBER 1891

LEGACY NGA NUMBER 1415

1 ACQUISITION Sestieri, Ettore (via Gabriel Sonnino), February 6, 1952

1 DISTRIBUTION Gift to National Gallery of Art, December 09, 1961

EXTERNAL LINKS Related Collection Record https://www.nga.gov/collection/art-object-page.46151.html

Related National Gallery of Art Library Image Collections Record https://library.nga.gov/permalink/01NGA_INST/1p5jkvq/alma99156253804896

Related National Gallery of Art Systematic Catalog https://library.nga.gov/permalink/01NGA_INST/1cl1g8d/alma992891233504896

5 ARCHIVAL ITEMS

K1891 - Condition and restoration record, circa 1950s-1960s

K1891 - Work summary log, 1970

NATIONAL GALLERY OF ART, WASHINGTON, DC, GALLERY ARCHIVES Page 2 KRESS COLLECTION DIGITAL ARCHIVE