St. Jerome Studying

José de Ribera
Xàtiva, 1591 - Naples, 1652
Date: c. 1616-1620
Dimensions: 124'5 x 100'6 cm
Materials: Oil on canvas
Of great artistic quality and probably painted during his stay in Naples, this youthful work by José de Ribera displays a composition based on Spagnoletto’s register. It presents the protagonist in three-quarter view, with his back turned, in a markedly austere yet balanced composition. The Valencian artist shows great mastery of drawing in the definition of the figure of St. Jerome, who appears both as a scholar and a penitent. The saint and his attributes emerge from absolute darkness and become the focus of a paradigmatic tenebrist treatment, avoiding any drift into Baroque pathos. Ribera opts for a restrained composition, designed for a cultivated and sensitive audience, capable of being moved by the delicately modelled musculature through the pictorial handling, by the admirable definition of the volumes, and by the chromatic nuances of the beard and hair, together with the cardinal’s purple, soberly sculpted through an elegant and subtle treatment of light and colour.

  • Beltrán, M. y Ferrer, A.: San Jerónimo estudiando, en Sant Francesc de Borja Gran d’Espanya. Art i espiritualitat en la cultura hispánica dels segles XVI i XVII. Guia de l’exposició, Sueca, 2010, p.15 y p. 34.
  • Company, X. and Argelich, M. A.: San Jerónimo estudiando, en San Francisco de Borja Grande de España. Art and Spirituality in Hispanic Culture of the Sixteenth and Seventeenth Centuries (exhibition catalogue), Sueca, 2010, pp. 248-251.
  • Hernández, L.: San Jerónimo estudiando, in La llum de les imatges, Lux Mundi: Xàtiva (exhibition catalogue), Valencia, 2007, pp. 694-695.
  • Spinosa, N.: San Jerónimo estudiando, in José de Ribera bajo el signo de Caravaggio (1613-1633) (exhibition catalogue), Salamanca, 2005, p. 66.
  • Spinosa, N.: San Jerónimo estudiando, in José de Ribera bajo el signo de Caravaggio (1613-1633) (exhibition catalogue), Valencia, 2005, p. 88.
  • Spinosa, N.: San Girolamo che escrive, en Ribera L’Opera completa, Napoli, 2006, p. 268.
  • Spinosa, N.: San Jerónimo escribendo, in Ribera obra completa, Madrid, 2008, p. 322.

  • Art i espiritualitat en la cultura hispánica dels segles XVI i XVII, Gandia, Casa de la Cultura Marqués de González de Quirós, del 4 de novembre de 2010 al 9 de gener de 2011.
  • La llum de les imatges, Lux Mundi: Xàtiva, Valencia, de abril a diciembre 2007.
  • José de Ribera bajo el signo de Caravaggio (1613-1633), Sala de Exposiciones San Eloy, Salamanca, entre abril y junio de 2005.
  • José de Ribera under the sign of Caravaggio (1613-1633)Museum of Fine Arts of Valencia, from June 16 to September 4, 2005.

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