COLLECTION NAME:
Santo Collection
Record
Creator display:
FresquÃs, Pedro Antonio (Colonial Spanish American santero, 1749-1831)
Creator role:
creator
Date display:
1800 circa
Title:
San Geronimo
Title:
Saint Jerome
Description:
Bearded male figure in open red mantle striking a stone against his chest with his left hand. A trumpet originating at the top right corner of the image points sound waves into the figure's left ear.
Note Fr. Steele:
"by Pedro Fresquis (or perhaps a follower)."|"The panel is broken so that about 6 to 7 cm of the left side are missing."|"The tiling was probably copied from an engraving; the NM artist got it all wrong--linear perspective was simply too sophisticated--so it looks like a vertical wall of some strange sort rather than a horizontal floor. The fine strong drafting of the figure, very much in evidence here, got Fresquis his earlier descriptive title "The Calligraphic Santero."
Location name:
New Mexico
Materials display:
paint on wood panel
Material name:
paint
Material name:
panel (wood by form)
Source name:
Thomas J. Steele, S.J.: The Regis University Collection of New Mexico and Colorado Santos.
Subject term:
Jerome, Saint, d. 419 or 20
Subject term:
sound
Subject term:
red
Work type:
retablos (panel paintings)
Conservation note:
Soluvar, Sept 1986.
Exhibition note:
Aurora, CO: Aurora History Museum, May-Aug 2009.
Provenance note:
"It is supposed to have come, along with three other santos, from under a house torn down in Old Town Albuquerque, from a shop on West Plaza Street."
Acquisition note:
1969
Accession number:
RU0014
Measurements display:
34 x 14 cm
Santo Subject:
San Geronimo (Saint Jerome)
Santo Subject Type:
Male Saints
Lived:
Lived: 342-420
Feast Day:
September 30
Patronage:
Patronage: of children and especially orphans; against lightning
Note:
Well educated in Rome, he lived as a hermit for a time, then acted as secretary to the pope, then went to Palestine where he lived as a monk and translated the Bible from Hebrew and Greek into the Latin Vulgate version. In a variant of the Androclus-and-Lion tale from classical folklore, Jerome removed a thorn from a lion's paw, and the beast then served as wrangler for the monastery's donkey. When some traveling merchants stole the donkey, the monks accused the lion of having eaten it, so the lion went out, found the real culprits, rounded them up like so many cattle, and herded them and the donkey home. The story (like many others told of founders of religious orders) identifies the cloister as an unfallen Eden where humans are restored to God, humans live together without sexual competition, and humans and animals are once again at one. Eugene F. Rice, Saint Jerome in the Renaissance (1985), pp. 37-46. / Bearded, often tonsured, clad in a red mantle, striking a stone against his bare breast as he kneels in prayer, often before a small cross or crucifix; there is almost always a lion at his feet, and the trumpet of God's voice speaks in his ear.
Rights text:
IN COPYRIGHT - EDUCATIONAL USE PERMITTED