?Final Price Realized includes Buyer’s Premium added to Hammer Price
Estimate: $ 1,500 - $ 2,500
JUSEPE DE RIBERA Saint Jerome Hearing the Trumpet of the Last Judgment.
Etching, 1621. 315x237 mm; 12 1/2x9 1/2 inches. First state (of 5). Fleur-de-lys in a circle watermark. A superb, richly-inked, early impression with all the fine details distinct, with strong contrasts and no sign of wear. With narrow margins outside the border line.
Provenance: Max Menge, Kollmar sur Elbe (Lugt 1893a, verso); sold C. G. Boerner, Leipzig, November 23-24, 1925.
St. Jerome was the favorite subject of Ribera (1591-1652), who was born near Valencia, Spain, but produced most of his mature work, from the 1620s onward, in and around Naples, which was then part of the Spanish Empire.
This is almost certainly the first of Ribera's two etchings depicting St. Jerome in the wilderness, interrupted by the sound of a trumpet. Its date--1621--indicates that it postdates the painting of the same subject Ribera sent to the Colegiata in Osuna in Spain. Bartsch 4; Brown 5.
