Saint Jerome Reading in an Italian Landscape

Artist Rembrandt van Rijn (Dutch, 1606 - 1669)

Dateca. 1653-1654

MediumEtching, drypoint, and engraving with sulfur tint

DimensionsPlate: 10 7/16 x 8 1/4 inches (26.51 x 20.96 cm)
Mat: 21 1/4 x 16 inches (53.98 x 40.64 cm)

Credit LinePurchase: William Rockhill Nelson Trust

Object number60-66

On View

Not on view

Collections

Prints

Terms

Exhibition History

Rembrandt, Master Etcher: A Study Exhibition, Steinberg Hall, Washington University Gallery of Art, St. Louis, MO, April 2-23, 1972.

Thirty Years of Print Purchases for the Permanent Collection, The Nelson-Atkins Museum of Art, Kansas City, MO, November 19 - December 31, 1989, no. 18.

Graphic Masterworks from the Permanent Collection, The Nelson-Atkins Museum of Art, Kansas City, MO, May 23-July 25, 1993, no cat., as Saint Jerome Reading in an Italian Landscape.

Inked in Time: Six Centuries of Printed Masterpieces, The Nelson-Atkins Museum of Art, Kansas City, MO, February 22-May 31, 1998, no cat., as Saint Jerome Reading in an Italian Landscape.

Rembrandt: Master Etchings from St. Louis Collections, Saint Louis Art Museum, October 20, 2006-January 14, 2007, no cat., as Saint Jerome Reading in an Italian Landscape.

Dürer to Tiepolo: Works on Paper, The Nelson-Atkins Museum of Art, Kansas City, MO, April 3-October 7, 2007, no cat., as Saint Jerome Reading in an Italian Landscape.

In the Footsteps of Rembrandt: The Etching Revival in Britain and America, The Nelson-Atkins Museum of Art, Kansas City, June 13-December 9, 2012, no cat., as Saint Jerome Reading in an Italian Landscape.

Dürer to Tiepolo: Works on Paper, The Nelson-Atkins Museum of Art, Kansas City, MO, December 12, 2012-June 9, 2013, no cat., as Saint Jerome Reading in an Italian Landscape.

Saints & Sinners, The Nelson-Atkins Museum of Art, Kansas City, MO, January 15-December 13, 2020.

Gallery Label

This work’s deep shadows and subtle tones, as well as a sense of nature’s grandeur that rivals even traditional landscape painting, makes Rembrandt’s appeal to the etching revival artists easy to understand. Here, Rembrandt incorporates both etching and drypoint, but in parallel strokes (see back of lion). He also uses a third technique called engraving, in which lines are incised on the metal plate with a broad instrument called a burin. The burin makes bolder and more dramatic lines than etching or drypoint. In one print we see the breadth of Rembrandt’s technical skills.

Provenance

Marsden Jasael Perry (1850-1935), Providence, RI, by May 18, 1908 [1];

His sale, Sammlungen der Herren Marsden J. Perry in Providence, R.I. (Amerika) und Fritz Rumpf in Potsdam enthaltend die Werke von Dürer und Rembrandt in seltener schönheit und vollständigkeit, H.G. Gutekunst, Stuttgart, Germany, May 21, 1908, lot 1206, as Der heilige Hieronymous in Dürers Geschmack [2];

Edwin D. Levinson (ca. 1876-1954), Lawrence, NY, by April 9, 1954;

With R. M. Light and Co., Inc., Boston, by August 31, 1960;

Purchased from R. M. Light and Co., Inc., by The Nelson-Atkins Museum of Art, Kansas City, MO, 1960.

NOTES:

[1] Lugt 1880

[2] This sale spanned from May 18-23, 1908 and lots 904-1210 were sold on May 21.

Published References

Adam Bartsch, Catalogue raisonné de toutes les estampes qui forment l'oeuvre de Rembrandt, et ceux de ses principaux imitateurs (Vienna: A. Blumauer, 1797), no. 104, pp. 105-06, 126, 182, 195, 205, as Saint Jerome.

Katalog der umfangreichen und wertvollen Sammlungen der Herren Marsden J. Perry in Providence, R.I. (Amerika) und Fritz Rumpf in Potsdam enthaltend die Werke von Dürer und Rembrandt in seltener schönheit und vollständigkeit (Stuttgart, Germany: H.G. Gutekunst, May 18-23, 1908), 86, as Der heilige Hieronymous in Dürers Geschmack.

Arthur Mayger Hind, A Catalogue of Rembrandt’s Etchings, vol. 1, Introduction and Catalogue (London: Methuen, 1923), no. 267, pp. 30, 109, as S. Jerome Reading, in an Italian Landscape.

Arthur Mayger Hind, A Catalogue of Rembrandt’s Etchings, vol. 2, Etchings (London: Methuen, 1923), no. 267.

Ludwig Münz, Rembrandt’s Etchings, 2 vols. (London: Phaidon, 1952), no. 249 II/II.

George Biörklund, Rembrandt’s Etchings, True and False: A Summary Catalogue in a Distinctive Chronological Order and Completely Illustrated, 2^nd ed. (Stockholm: 1968), no. BB. 53-3 II/II.

Karel G. Boon and Christopher White, Hollstein’s Dutch and Flemish Etchings, Engravings and Woodcuts, vols. 18, Rembrandt van Rijn: Text (Amsterdam: Van Gendt, 1969), no. 104 II/II.

Karel G. Boon and Christopher White, Hollstein’s Dutch and Flemish Etchings, Engravings and Woodcuts, vols. 19, Rembrandt van Rijn: Plates (Amsterdam: Van Gendt, 1969), no. 104 II/II.

Patricia Rice Strong, Rembrandt, Master Etcher: A Study Exhibition, exh. cat. (St. Louis: Washington University Gallery of Art, 1972).

Thirty Years of Print Purchases for the Permanent Collection, The Nelson-Atkins Museum of Art, Kansas City, MO, November 19 - December 31, 1989, p. 7.

George L. McKenna, Prints, 1460-1995 (Kansas City, MO: Nelson-Atkins Museum of Art, 1996), 97-99, 276, (repro.), as Saint Jerome Reading in an Italian Landscape.

Deborah Emont Scott, ed., The Nelson-Atkins Museum of Art: A Handbook of the Collection, 7th ed. (Kansas City, MO: Nelson-Atkins Museum of Art, 2008), 78, (repro.), as Saint Jerome Reading in an Italian Landscape.

Information about a particular artwork or image, including provenance information, is based upon historic information and may not be currently accurate or complete. Research on artwork and images is an ongoing process, and the information about a particular artwork or image may not reflect the most current information available to the Museum. If you notice a mistake or have additional information about a particular artwork or image, please e-mail provenance@nelson-atkins.org.