An Important Italian Painted Terracotta Half-length Figure of Saint Jerome, Attributed to Giovanni de Fondulis (1420/1430-after 1497), Circa 1475

modelled with his head turned to dexter, his mouth open and surrounded by a thick, curly beard, his eyes alert and gazing to the heavens, deep lines around the eyes and on his brow, his emaciated torso clad in a torn shirt bound with a rope at the waist, a cloak covering his left side and held up by his left, the right hand striking his breast with a stone, on later base. 



 

Vienna Art Dealer, circa 1924

Sammlung Dr. Viktor Bloch, Vienna, sold Gilhofer & Ranschburg, Lucerne, November 30, 1934

Collection of Dr. and Mrs. Hesse, Potsdam

Leo Spik KG Kunstversteigerungen, Berlin, Auktion 600, April 18, 2002, p. 59, no. 639, pl. 30,

E. Kris, "Zwei Unbekannte Werke Giovanni Minelli dei Bardi's", in Belvedere Forum, 1924, p. 75, fig. 2 illus.

L. Planiscig, Andrea Riccio, Vienna, 1927, fig. 133, pp. 121 and 126

Sammlung Dr. Viktor Bloch Gemälde alter Meister des 14. bis Jahrhunderts, Gilhofer & Ranschburg, Lucerne, Switzerland, Auction XVIII, November 30, 1934, pl. XXVII, fig. 78, p. 37

 

 

RELATED LITERATURE

W. Bode, Die italienischen Bronzestatuetten der Renaissance, Berlin, 1907

P. Schubring, Italienische Plastik des Quattrocento, 1919, S. 214, abb. 292 (figure of St. Jerome)

L. Planiscig, Venezianische Bildhauer de Renaissance, Vienna 1921, figs.186 and 187

W. Terni de Gregory: 'Giovanni da Crema and his "Seated Goddess"', Burl. Mag., xcii, 950, pp. 158–61

G. Gentilini. "Un busto all'antica del Riccio e alcuni appunti sulla scultura a Padova tra quattro e cinquecento", in Nuovi Studi, Rivista di Arte Antica e Moderna, vol. I, Milan, 1996, pp.29-46

Dal Medioevo a Canova. Sculture dei Musei Civico di Padova dal Trecento all'Ottocento (exh.cat.), Musei Civi agli Eremitani, Padua, 20 February- 16 July, 2000, ed. D. Bonzato, F. Pellegrini and M. De Vincenti, pp. 118-122, figs. 44-46

A. Darr, P. Barnet & A. Bostrum, Catalogue of Italian Sculpture in the Detroit Institute of Arts, vol. I, London, 2002, no. 87

V. Scarbi (ed.), La Scultura al tempo di Andrea Mantegna (exh,cat,),Verona, 2006, pp. 92-99

A. Bacchi and L. Giacomelli (eds.), Rinascimento E Passione Per L'Antico. Andrea Riccio e il suo Tempo (exh.cat.), Trento, 2008, nos. 8,9, pp. 59-73, 248-255

 

 

 

This exceptional 15^th century three-quarter length terracotta figure of Saint Jerome has been identified as the work of the important Paduan sculptor Giovanni de Fondulis, or Giovanni di Fondulino Fonduli da Crema.  Scholars have recently reconstructed the oeuvre of this important and innovative sculptor, who worked with other major artists of the Italian Renaissance including Andrea Riccio, and now attribute the majority of sculptures once given to his contemporary Giovanni Minelli dei Bardi (1440-1529) to him.  Fondulis is praised for his hyper-realistic reinterpretation of the humanistic naturalism pioneered in the work of Donatello and Andrea Mantegna in Padua a generation before, and has gained a reputation of one of the most pivotal artists of the late 15^th century Veneto.

The present St. Jerome's beautifully modeled, lean musculature, deeply excavated facial features and organic drapery are analogous to that of the figures of Christ, St. Peter and St. John in the Museo Civico (fig. 1), Padua (Dal Medioevo, op.cit, figs.44-46). In the 2000 exhibition catalogue, Dal Medioevo e Canova, the traditional attribution of these three figures to Minelli was discarded and the authorship of Fondulis was corroborated. The study of Minelli had previously been limited by the fact that only four terracotta figures, including the three mentioned above, for which the documents are today lost, were purportedly recorded in 1490 as having been modeled by him for the Palazzo Vescovale in Padua. Planiscig, Venturi, Fabriczy, Scarbi and Gentilini, among others, accepted this attribution to Minelli. However, the distinctively realistic modelling of these figures has recently led several scholars, including Gentilini, to suggest that other contemporary sculptors of Minelli in Padua working toward the end of the century, such as Giovanni de Fondulis, could be the authors of these and some of the undocumented sculptures previously given to Minelli.

In 2006, during the research for the exhibition, La sculture di tempo di Andrea Mantegna, Giuliana Ericani writes that the scholar Marco Pizzo, having previously cast doubt on the Minelli attribution to the three sculptures in the Museo Civico, discovered a document from the council of the city of Bassano regarding the execution of the altar of the Baptism of Christ with Angels for the Sacristy of S. Giovanni Battista at Bassano (fig. 2), proving that the terracotta figures of the prophets David and Isaiah flanking the Baptism were made by a Giovanni da Crema (Giovanni de Fondulis) in 1476. 

The existence of other contracts link Fondulis to various other commissions including one dated 29 November 1469, written by Fondulis himself, stipulating the execution of three large terracotta altarpieces for a church to be built in the palace of the Este family at Este. In a later contract of 3 March 1484, Fondulis agrees to create a bronze relief for the basilica of Sant' Antonio (Il Santo), Padua. The latter contract paints a picture of a sculptor who competed with the masters Bartollomeo Bellano and Bertoldo di Giovanni for this prestigious commission, and was quickly becoming a central figure in the Veneto in the post-Donatello and –Mantegna era.

The present figure of St. Jerome was first published in 1924 by Ernest Kris in an article attributing the sculpture and another three-quarter length figure of St. John the Baptist in the Musée des Arts Décoratifs, Paris (inv. PE648) to Minelli. Kris noted the similarity between our St. Jerome and the Baptism relief in Bassano, then given to Minelli, in the style of the luxurious beard of the standing prophet Isaiah to the right in the relief. Furthermore, the position and structure of the hands, particularly Isaiah's right hand, was noted as comparable to St. Jerome's  left-hand. Kris further drew attention to the publication by Leo Planiscig (op.cit., figs.186 and 187), three years earlier, attributing two full-length terracotta figures of St. John (fig. 3)  and St. Jerome (fig. 4) to Minelli. The former was at that time in the Depot of the Alte Pinakothek, Munich and is now in the Detroit Institute of Arts. The full-length St. Jerome was in the collection of Professor Nager in Munich in 1914 and is now preserved in the Museum für kunst und Gewerbe, Hamburg. Planiscig, like many scholars after him, also linked these two figures to the Bassano Baptism relief and believed them to date from Minelli's naturalistic period of the 1490s. However, with the recent reattribution of the relief and the three figures in Padua, it has become clear that these two standing figures of St. Jerome and St. John as well as the present St. Jerome, should be included in the group of major sculptures given to Fondulis.

A significant and direct comparison can be made between this figure of St. Jerome and the full-length figure in Hamburg. The present piece is modeled with the same thick, undulating locks of hair and the distinctive chest bone and rib cage depicted as if the skin were thin and lacking in elasticity. There is also a strong similarity in the almond-shaped eyes, slightly downward sloping at the ends, the strong brow line, nose and full lips. Furthermore, the faces, vestments, belts and drapery are extremely similar and the boldly modeled figures are expressive and animated.

In the 2002 catalogue entry for the figure of St. John in Detroit, Darr (op.cit.,no. 87) maintained the attribution to Minelli. However, recent discussions with Giancarlo Gentilini have led Darr to change the attribution to Fondulis, following that of the related figures in Italy.

Attributions of some of Fondulis' sculptures to Riccio are also fairly common and there are a series of sculptures which illustrate that their styles were linked.The terracotta figure of Saint John the Evangelist in Padua (see Rinascimento e Passione, op.cit., fig.45), for example, has now been ascribed to both Riccio and Fondulis and the head of St. Sebastian in the Bode Museum (once the Staatliche Museen), Berlin, once associated with Riccio is now considered to be a work of Fondulis (see Rinascimento e Passione, op.cit, pp.254-5). Futhermore, a comparison between the Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum, Boston Pièta of 1485 and Riccio's Pièta of 1490-1500 in Santo Stefano (Rinascimento e Passione, op.cit, pp.26-28) demonstrates that Riccio likely looked to Fondulis' naturalism and expressive drapery style to create some of his works. Fondulis' best-known work, the bronze partially gilded Seated Goddess in the Wallace Collection, London, signed 'OPUS IO/CRE' has been compared with Riccio's later bronzes of female figures.

The superiority of the modeling in the present figure is clearly the work of a highly accomplished sculptor. The expressive and almost nervous quality of the facial expressions and gestures displayed were clearly influenced by Donatello who was in Padua from 1445-55. Fondulis probably arrived in Padua before Donatello's departure, and was clearly documented as being there from 1469 to circa 1485. He belonged to a group of sculptors who were strongly influenced by both Donatello and Mantegna, including Bartolomeo Bellano, Niccolò Fiorentino, Antonio Rizzo and Giovanni Minelli.

Reattributions from Minelli to Fondulis continue to be clarified by recent documentary evidence and further stylistic comparisons. His distinctive manner of modeling terracotta and his ability to anticipate the freer, less static, structure of the 16^th century, was conspicuous and hailed in Padua during a time when Riccio's classicizing manner of  portraying his figures was preeminent. Fondulis was a visionary who reinterpreted the naturalism he learned from Donatello's sculpture into a new expressiveness and immediacy clearly represented in the present St. Jerome.

St. Jerome was a great man of learning and a Doctor of the Church. He was commissioned by Pope Damasus I in 382 to produce a revision of old Latin translations of the Bible. The Vulgate, the early 5^th century Latin version, was largely the result of Jerome's labors and it became the definitive and official Latin version of the Roman Catholic Church. Jerome traveled widely and spent four years as a hermit in the Syrian desert where he studied literature and languages. Like St. Francis of Assisi and Antony the Great, among others, who practiced severe asceticism, he experienced vivid sexual hallucinations and struck himself with a stone until the 'fever' passed. St. Jerome is the patron saint of librarians. .

This sculpture is sold with a Thermoluminesence report from Oxford Authentication indicating that the sample no.N102m47 was last fired between 300 and 550 years ago.