Saint Jerome in his study

A distinguished painter and publisher, as well as a designer of prints, tapestries and stained glass, Pieter Coecke van Aelst is one of the most fascinating and celebrated artists in the sixteenth-century Lowlands. He was so valued in his own time that both Holy Roman Emperor Charles V and Mary of Hungary invited him to serve as court painter. Following Coecke’s death, early commentators kept the flame of fame alive. The Antwerp-based Florentine merchant Lodovico Guicciardini described him as ‘great’ (Description of the Low Countries, Antwerp, 1567); the German topographer Georg Braun proclaimed him ‘most excellent’ (Civitates orbis terrarum, Cologne, 1572-1617); and the Flemish-born artist and theorist Karel van Mander celebrated him as ‘ingenious and knowledgeable’ (Het Schilder-boeck, Haarlem, 1604). Coecke counted among his pupils a number of important artists of the following generation, chief among them Pieter Bruegel the Elder, with Max J. Friedländer describing his importance by noting how ‘the spirit of Brussels seems to have made its entry into Antwerp in the person of Pieter Coeck van Alost’ (Early Netherlandish Painting: Jan van Scorel and Pieter Coeck van Aelst, XII, New York and Washington, 1975, p. 32).

Saint Jerome was a Doctor of the Catholic Church, most famous for his translation of the Bible into the Latin Vulgate. He is generally represented as the archetypal scholar, surrounded by the objects of his profession and the red hat indicative of his rank as Cardinal. The spectacles, designed to sharpen the power of the eyes and depicted front and centre in Coecke’s composition, signify Jerome's contribution to Christian theology and his refinement of its essential text. The skull to which he emphatically points is both a symbol of the seat of thought and a reminder of death. The candle, balanced precariously on the ledge, also represents the fragility of life and serves as a further reminder of the possibility of spiritual illumination, underscoring the painting’s central themes of mortality and salvation.

Iconographic details implore the viewer to make good choices during his or her time on earth, a point that is reinforced by the Latin inscription on the cartellino affixed to the back wall that reads ‘PVTAS · NE · MORTVS / HOMO · RVRSV[M] · VIVAT / · Job lecti[on]ario(?) · […]II ·’. The text comes from the Book of Job 14:14 and translates as ‘If a man dies, shall he live again?’. Jerome interpreted this passage as a message of uncertainty regarding the eventual end of man's labours and sufferings, which, according to Christian theology, would occur at the Last Judgement. An episode from the Saint's life records that, while in the wilderness, Jerome heard trumpets sounding the Last Judgement and looked up to see a cross with Christ's body before him. The crucifix in the lower left foreground probably alludes to this story and serves as a reminder of the centrality of the Last Judgement to the Christian faith. The Bible at left may also reference mankind's eventual salvation: it opens to a page with verses from the Gospel of Matthew describing Christ's entrance into the earthly world. This biblical text stands in stark contrast to the extinguished candle at right, which probably also references the Saviour's violent departure and the ensuing redemption of earthly sinners.

Coecke’s painting, dated 1530, confirms his familiarity with Albrecht Dürer. In 1520-1, Dürer travelled through the Lowlands, where in 1521 he made a drawing of a 93-year-old man resting his head on his right hand (fig. 1), which in turn served as a model for his wizened Saint Jerome in his study of the same year (fig. 2). The painting, by the most famous artist north of the Alps in his day, understandably had a seismic influence on Netherlandish artists of the period. In addition to Coecke, Joos van Cleve, Quentin Metsys and Bernard van Orley all borrowed from Dürer’s image in their own paintings. The latter, who included a similar motif in his Holy Family of 1522 (Madrid, Museo Nacional del Prado), perhaps familiarised Coecke with the idea while the younger artist was, according to van Mander, under his tutelage. Coecke would return to Dürer’s design on a number of occasions throughout his career. An undated variant of the present composition was sold at Christie’s, New York, 28 January 2015, lot 104, for $665,000. In addition to that and the present painting, Georges Marlier referenced two further autograph versions based on Dürer’s prototype and two more that he presumed to be by artists in Coecke’s orbit (op. cit., pp. 253-255, particularly figs. 198 and 200). Coecke would again deploy the idea in reverse for his figure of Saint Joseph in a Holy Family of circa 1530-5 in the M-Museum Leuven.

Marlier confidently described the present work as ‘certainement de la main de Pierre Coeck et de fort belle qualité’ (loc. cit.), his judgement made easier by the picture’s fine state of preservation. Particularly noticeable is the graphic handling of the paint surface that demonstrates Coecke’s preference for disconnected brushwork rather than smooth modelling and tonal transition – what Maryan Ainsworth has referred to as Coecke’s ‘deliberate use of unblended, disengaged brushstrokes’ to heighten the expressive quality of his protagonists (M. Ainsworth, ‘Pieter Coecke van Aelst as a Panel Painter’, Grand Design – Pieter Coecke van Aelst and Renaissance Tapestry, exhibition catalogue, New York, 2014, p. 26).

The painting’s infrared reflectogram (fig. 3) also accords well with what we know about Coecke’s distinctive underdrawing technique (see loc. cit.). Coecke is known to have eschewed the pervading method used by his Antwerp contemporaries of strictly linear parallel and cross-hatching (a style commonly referred to as the ‘woodcut convention’), in favour of a much looser and more varied style of underdrawing. In this case the lines for the figure and many of the still life elements are reasonably controlled, but the brush handling of the background and the scribbled notations in the folds of the costume are remarkably free. The sparse use of parallel hatching for areas of shading is another recurrent feature of his technique. The IRR also reveals how Coecke made numerous adjustments to the composition at different stages of its development. Among the most evident alterations during the painting process are those to Jerome’s right cuff and sleeve, which were lower in the initial underdrawing; the extension of the sides of his hat (evidently a late emendation made over the painted background); the slight lowering of his nose; and the adjustments to the positioning of nearly all the foreground still-life elements and the freely laid-in background. Changes to the background are particularly notable in the placement of the hat in the window and apple on the ledge, the latter of which the artist moved to the extreme rear in the painting.

A recent dendrochronological examination supports the date inscribed on the panel (report by Ian Tyers, January 2024, available upon request). The widest leftmost board, the only one of the three for which it was possible to record a full tree-ring sequence, is of eastern Baltic origin and was cut from a tree felled after circa 1513.

We are grateful to Till-Holger Borchert for endorsing the attribution after first-hand inspection.