Francesco Salvator FONTEBASSO - Lot 10

Lot 10
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Estimation :
8000 - 12000 EUR
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Result : 7 800EUR
Francesco Salvator FONTEBASSO - Lot 10
Francesco Salvator FONTEBASSO and his workshop (Venice 1707 - 1769) The Virgin Appearing to Saint Jerome Pair of canvases, curved at the top, one on its original canvas. 30 x 23 cm Restoration. Provenance : Collection of Monsieur D. Saint Jerome is traditionally depicted as one of the Fathers of the Church, famous for his translation of the Bible into Latin, and he is often in the company of a lion, in reference to the legend that he removed a thorn from a lion's paw, thus rendering it docile. The depiction of the Virgin Mary appearing to Saint Jerome is rarer, but it has been treated by some artists, such as Le Guerchin in the painting preserved in the church of Saint-Thomas d'Aquin in Paris. In this painting, as in ours, Mary is depicted as appearing to Jerome in a vision or dream, exhorting or guiding him in his labors or penances. Fontebasso treated this subject many times, always taking care to vary the postures of the Virgin and the saint. Eleven paintings have been catalogued, one large format and ten small formats similar in size to our two paintings, including one in the Galli collection in Milan (23 x 30 cm, see M. Magrini, Francesco Fontebasso, Vicenza, 1988, no. 92, reproduced fig.33), the one in a private collection in Brescia (30 x 22 cm, see opus quoted above, no. 18), the one in the Budapest Museum of Fine Arts (30 x 22 cm, opus quoted above, no. 28, reproduced fig.37), the two in a London collection (30 x 22 cm, opus quoted above, no. 75-76, reproduced fig. 34), or the one in the Louvre Museum (29 x 22 cm, opus quoted above, no. 75-76, reproduced fig. 34). (29 x 22 cm, opus quoted above, no. 123, reproduced fig. 36). These paintings are part of a cycle of devotional paintings dedicated to St. Jerome, the first version of which is thought to be the large painting kept at the Ateneo Veneto in Venice (300 x 200 cm, see opus cited above, no. 167, reproduced fig. 32). The Scuola is dedicated to St. Jerome and has a church for which Fontebasso produced the painting, which is probably the prototype of the smaller versions, of which ours are a part, and which were probably small devotional pictures commissioned by the monks for their own cells. The unusual iconography is explained by the fact that the Scuola was originally dedicated to both the saint and the Madonna, and it is therefore easy for Fontebasso to have wanted to depict both protectors in a single painting.
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