The Temptation of Saint Jerome

1541–48

Giorgio Vasari (Italian, 1511–1574)

Giorgio Vasari is best known as the author of Lives of the Most Excellent Painters, Sculptors, and Architects, a monumental compendium of artist biographies. He was also a successful architect and a prolific painter for the Medici dukes of Florence. Here, he depicted an episode from the life of Saint Jerome, a scholar, translator of the Bible, and advocate of monasticism, an ascetic lifestyle dedicated to spiritual contemplation. While meditating in the desert, he was assailed by tempting visions, here personified as Venus, the Roman goddess of love, accompanied by cupids. The work is unfinished: The black-chalk grid, used as an aid in enlarging and transferring the preparatory drawing onto the panel, is still visible through the thinly applied initial paint layers.

Status: On View, Gallery 205
Department: Painting and Sculpture of Europe

Artist: Giorgio Vasari
Title: The Temptation of Saint Jerome
Place: Italy (Artist's nationality:)
Date Dates are not always precisely known, but the Art Institute strives to present this information as consistently and legibly as possible. Dates may be represented as a range that spans decades, centuries, dynasties, or periods and may include qualifiers such as c. (circa) or BCE.: 1541–1548
Medium: Oil on panel
Dimensions: 166.5 × 121.9 cm (65 1/2 × 48 in.); Framed: 203.9 × 161.3 × 15.3 cm (80 1/4 × 63 1/2 × 6 in.)
Credit Line: Charles H. and Mary F. S. Worcester Collection
Reference Number: 1964.64
IIIF Manifest The International Image Interoperability Framework (IIIF) represents a set of open standards that enables rich access to digital media from libraries, archives, museums, and other cultural institutions around the world. Learn more.: https://api.artic.edu/api/v1/artworks/110242/manifest.json

John Maxon, The Art Institute of Chicago, London, 1970, p. 254.
C. Monbeig-Goguel, “Giorgio Vasari et son temps,” Revue de l’art no. 14 (1971), p. 108.
Burton B. Fredericksen and Federico Zeri, Census of Pre-Nineteenth Century Italian Paintings in North American Public Collections, Cambridge, MA, 1972, pp. 209, 409, 571.
Emmanuel Bénézit, Dictionnaire critique et documentaire des peintres, sculpteurs, dessinateurs, et graveurs de tous les temps et de tous les pays, 3d ed., vol. 10, 1976, p. 404.
Dizionario enciclopedico Bolaffi dei pittori e degli incisori italiani, dall’ XI al XX secolo, vol. 11, Turin, 1976, p. 258.
A.M. Bracciante, Giorgio Vasari, exh. cat., Arezzo, Casa Vasari, 1981, sec. 4, p. 80, under no. 11.
D. Clark, “Vasari’s Temptation of St. Jerome Paintings: Artifacts of his Camaldoli Crisis,” Studies in Iconography 10 (1984-86), pp. 102, 106, 108, 110, 112, 115, n. 25, 117, n. 48, fig. 2 (mislabeled).
C.M. Brown, “‘Verzeichnis etlicher Antiquitäten, so von Herrn Kardinal von Trient überschickt worden’: Paintings and Antiquities from the Roman Collection of Bishop Gerolamo Garimberto Offered to Duke Albrecht Vth of Bavaria in 1576, ” Xenia 10 (1985), pp. 60, 64, 69-70 n. 18.
L. Corti, Vasari: Catalogo completo dei dipinti, Florence, 1989, p. 38, under no. 21.
Christopher Lloyd, Italian Paintings before 1600 in the Art Institute of Chicago, Chicago, 1993, pp. 262-267 (ill.).
Umberto Baldini, Giorgio Vasari, Florence, 1994, p. 162.

University of Notre Dame, Indiana, Art Gallery, The Age of Vasari, 1970, no. P18.
The Art Institute of Chicago, Bill Viola: A 25-Year Survey, October 16, 1999 – January 9, 2000, included in the gallery that held Viola’s The Greeting for the Chicago venue.

Miss M. M. Webber until 1963; sold Sotheby’s, London, July 3, 1963, no. 89 (ill.) to Patch for £3800 [according to letter of October 10, 2000, from Camilla Harris, Sotheby’s, who also identified Patch as Weitzner]; Julius Weitzner, London; purchased by the Art Institute through Charles H. and Mary F.S. Worcester Collection Fund, 1964

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Date Dates are not always precisely known, but the Art Institute strives to present this information as consistently and legibly as possible. Dates may be represented as a range that spans decades, centuries, dynasties, or periods and may include qualifiers such as c. (circa) or BCE.

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