Saint Jerome

Paolo Veronese died in 1588, and this Saint Jerome in the church of San Pietro Martire on Murano reflects the work produced by his sons Carletto and Gabriele Caliari along with his brother Benedetto, who maintained the family workshop well into the seventeenth century. Saint Jerome — the scholar who translated the Bible into Latin, depicted as a penitent in the wilderness beating his chest before a crucifix — was among the most frequently painted subjects of the Counter-Reformation, his devotion to scripture giving him renewed relevance in the debates over the Vulgate that divided Catholics and Protestants. Murano, Venice's island of glassmakers, contained churches that competed for prestige altarpieces, and Veronese's workshop supplied paintings to this market as they had to the Venetian mainland. The year 1600 date points to post-mortem workshop production; the survival of the Veronese style into the new century testifies to the enduring demand for the warm, coloristically brilliant approach that Paolo had made synonymous with Venetian religious painting. The family workshop drew on the master's drawings and compositional types while adapting to the devotional requirements of individual patrons.

The penitent saint is rendered with the warm palette and luminous flesh tones characteristic of the Veronese workshop tradition. The handling of the rocky wilderness setting demonstrates competent landscape work in the master's manner.