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SPANISH SCHOOL S. XVII

Saint Joseph with the Child

Oil on canvas

Measures 130.5 x 103 cm

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PPS SPANISH SCHOOL. S. XVIII

Saint Teresa of Jesus

Oil on canvas

Measures 104.5 x 83 cm

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FRANCISCO HERRERA THE OLD

Seville 1576 - Madrid 1656

Tears of Saint Peter

Oil on canvas

Measures 81.5 x 67 cm

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ITALIAN SCHOOL S. XVIII

Assumption of the Virgin

sanguine drawing

On the back inscribed in black ink: "uberto calonge"

Measurements 220 x 170 mm

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SPANISH SCHOOL S. XVII

Saint Thomas Aquinas and Saint Vincent Ferrer

Tempera on vellum

Measures 101 x 100 mm each

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SPANISH SCHOOL S. XIX

Baby Jesus sleeps on the Cross

Oil on canvas

Measures 55 x 69.5 cm

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FRENCH SCHOOL FNS. S. XVIII

sleeping cupid

Oil on canvas

Measures 42 x 33 cm

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SPANISH SCHOOL S. XVII

Imposition of the chasuble on San Ildefonso

oil on board

Measures 4.4 x 9.5 cm

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ITALIAN SCHOOL S. XVIII

Penitent Magdalene before a landscape

Oil on canvas

Measures 51.5 x 66 cm

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FOLLOWER OF LUCA GIORDANO S. XVIII

Saint Michael and Saint Gabriel present the Child Jesus to the Virgin

Oil on canvas

Measures 91.5 x 105.5 cm

The theme represented is inspired by a passage from "The Mystical City of God", written by María Jesús de Ágreda (1602-1665), adviser to King Felipe IV. In her text, she describes how the archangels Michael and Gabriel attended the mystery “in a human and corporeal way”, receiving the Child in their arms and handing him over to the Virgin.

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COPY OF CARLO MARATTA S. XVIII

San Jose Transit

Oil on canvas

Measures 136 x 107.5 cm

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FLEMISH SCHOOL S. XVII

Jesus before Caiaphas

oil on copper

Measures 69 x 87 cm

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FLEMISH SCHOOL S. XVII

Jesus tied and whipped to the column

oil on copper

Measures 69 x 87 cm

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HENDRICK VAN SOMER

Lokeren 1607- Naples 1656?

Saint Jerome before the skull

Oil on canvas

Signed

Measures 120 x 100 cm

Origin:

- Private collection, Madrid.

The canvas, covered in modern times, presents Saint Jerome before an indeterminate dark background, writing on a sheet of paper on a wooden table, while he extends his left arm to touch with his hand a skull placed on a stone. The saint, turned to the right, looks in profile towards the skull; His shoulders are bare, his body is covered by only a red cloak, alluding to the iconography of him in cardinal garments. On the table, in addition to the sheet and another letter underneath, he rests a thick book, obviously the Bible, with a detached leather cover and in poor condition; on this rests the stone to do penance and behind it another pen can be seen to write. According to a family tradition, the painting comes from the bankruptcy of the Dukes of Osuna at the end of the 19th century.

The sheet on which Saint Jerome writes bears the signature "Jusepe de Ribera f.": however, the letter of the inscription contains appreciable uncertainty and its shape does not correspond in any way to those of Ribera, as it does not have a year. nor the nicknames "Valencian" or "Spanish"; likewise, the "f." of "fecit" or "faciebat" is in lower case and not capital. Therefore, you have to think about a later addition. Nor can the style leave any doubts: despite being very similar to that of the Españoleto, it somewhat reduces the dramatic force of the Valencian master in favor of a slightly pathetic expressiveness, and his brushwork is not so dense but more liquid, fine and soft thanks to a treatment subtle, as can be seen especially in the hair and beard of the saint.

In reality, we are in front of a work by Hendrick de Somer or "Errigo fiammingo", as Bernardo de Dominici quotes it among Ribera's disciples. Sometimes nicknamed “the Neapolitan”, to distinguish him from the contemporary and weaker painter of the same name who was born in Rome in 1615 and was active there and then in Amsterdam from 1645 to 1684, the year after his death, “Errigo fiammingo” turns out to have been born in Lokeren ( Ghent) around 1607. From 1624 to 1655 he is documented in Naples, where he arrived at the age of seventeen and must have died during the tremendous pestilence of 1656. A vigorous interpreter of the naturalist realism of Jusepe de Ribera, of whom on many occasions derived the compositions and which he always maintained as the main reference model, Somer is inserted in the broad phenomenon of "riberismo" that brought together various artistic personalities in Naples in the second quarter of the 17th century, such as Filippo Vitale, Bartolomeo Passante, Juan Do, Francesco Fracanzano and Antonio de Bellis. In addition, his works show contact with another Flemish painter somewhat older than him and who lived in Naples for a few years in the mid-thirties, Matthias Stomer or Stom, whose style, however, remains more charged both in drawing and in contrasts. of light and shadow.

According to De Dominici, Somer always refrained, “when he painted of his own invention”, from using “color as dense as the master”. Indeed, with the passing of the years his style tends to become less raw and softer and the chiaroscuro less violent and more pictorial and precious, while the colors acquire luminosity. This evolution reflects the influence of the neo-Venetian taste, which penetrated and achieved success in the capital throughout the fourth decade. On the other hand, Somer's Flemish origin is revealed through his taste for the analytical description of surfaces and for the details of still life, as here in books and papers, and a certain inclination for sentimental nuances, which can be appreciated in the shocked and almost crying face of Saint Jerome, the strained and myopic gaze and the half-open mouth. The character of old Cimon is represented in a similar way in the two versions of the Roman Charity, one of which, formerly in the collection of Senator Giacinto Bosco of Rome, bears the painter's monogram with the year 1635.

Somer dealt many times with the theme of Saint Jerome, imitating and varying the models of Ribera and, behind them, of Caravaggio, paying special attention to the description of the arms, made thin and skinny due to intellectual labor, and of the hands wrinkled by old age, as well as books and skulls. The specimens, all half length, from the Speed ​​Art Museum of Louisville in Kentucky are indicated; from a private collection in Naples; from the Canesso Art Gallery in Paris, dated 1654; private collection also in Paris; of the San Esteban Charterhouse in Serra San Bruno in Calabria; from a private collection in Cosenza, where the trunk of the Last Judgment appears to the saint; and finally from the Hermitage Museum in St. Petersburg, this one dated 1651 or 1652 and the last two the only full-length ones. In all these paintings, as in the one discussed here, the palette centered on the play of ochres, white and red stands out. Lastly, the Saint Jerome from the National Gallery of the Palazzo Barberini in Rome, signed and dated «Enrico so./ f. 1652" and a direct derivation from Ribera's painting in Mdina on the island of Malta: it is interesting to note that, before the modern restoration, the signature was covered by a false inscription "Jusepe de Ribera F. 1649": apart from the "F .” in capital letters, the same as the one that can be read in the painting presented here and which he intends to place, due to his still sober style and reduced palette, at an early stage of his career: that is, around 1635-1640 .

We thank Riccardo Lattuada for the fruitful exchange of views.

Rome, November 17, 2022

Antonio Vannugli

abbreviated bibliography:

Bernardo De Dominici, Vite de’ pittori... 2003-2008, 1, p. 39; Ferdinando Bologna, Battistello..., Cat. Exp. Nápoles 1991, pp. 15-208, 164-167 and 309-313, no. 2.72-2.78 (Lilia Rocco); Nicola Spinosa, Aggiunte... coord. Francesco Abbate and Fiorella Sricchia Santoro, 1995, pp. 223-230; Ferdinando Bologna, Per Giovanni Ricca... 1996, pp. 9-37; Nicola Spinosa, Pittura... 2010, p. 392-398; Viviana Farina, Intorno... 27, 2011, pp. 155-194; Gianluca Forgione, Ancora... 54/5, 2013, p. 91-97; Giuseppe Porzio, La scuola... 2014, p. 93-205; Véronique Damian, Massimo Stanzione... 2016, pp. 20-25

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