Abraham Janssens, 1575 Antwerpen – 1632 ebenda SAINT HIERONYMUS Oil on canvas. Doubled. 190 x 149.5 cm. In gilded frame with vegetal decoration. Janssens was a very versatile contemporary of Peter Paul Rubens and one of the most famous artists of the Flemish Baroque. The life-size depiction of the seated saint, whose radical asceticism is often reflected in his subordination to nature. Here, however, his expansive, portrait-like figure appears very close to the viewer, his hand grasping a crucifix, not so much to hold it as to seek support from it, behind it an open script that marks him out as a scholar, and his galero. Together with the right leg, this acts as a diagonal compositional counterweight to the descending diagonal of the arm reaching towards the cross, with both diagonals meeting in the skull. The lion at the bottom right, Jerome's attribute animal, is looking at him. Abraham Janssens was born in Antwerp in 1567 and studied under Jan Snellinck (1548-1638) from 1584 to 1585 before going to Italy and becoming a pupil of Willem van Nieulandt the Elder (d. 1626). In Italy, Janssens was inspired by the works of the Italian Renaissance, such as Michelangelo's depictions of the Prophets in the Sistine Chapel or Raphael's Heraclitus in the "School of Athens". Even the "Torso of Belvedere" in the Vatican, which also inspired Rubens, may in part have been the inspiration for the Hieronymus in the present painting. However, contemporary trends in Italian art also influenced his work, for example artists such as Caracci and Caravaggio, the latter of whom worked in Rome from 1592 to 1606; his chiaro-scuro is clearly recognizable in the painting by Janssens offered here. Around 1608 he returned from Rome to Antwerp, where he received countless commissions. Masterpieces such as the one offered here are a sign that Janssens was only slightly behind his competitor Rubens in terms of fame. The work offered here has come down to us in several other versions by Janssens and his workshop, for example in the Chrysler Museum of Art, Norfolk, Virginia (inv. no. 71.459), in the Museum of Fine Arts, Budapest (inv. no. 731), and in Ampleforth Abbey, Yorkshire. Provenance: Sotheby's New York, October 14, 2020, lot 140 as Abraham Janssens. Exhibition: Cuenca, Fundación Pérez, on permanent loan, Fundación Antonio Pérez, Spain, 2010-2015. Cuenca, Fundación Antonio Pérez. El fulgor de la mirada. Alfredo Castaneda, and Abraham Janssens, April - May 2011. (1401613) (2) (13) Abraham Janssens, 1575 Antwerp - 1632 ibid. SAINT JEROME Oil on canvas. Relined. 190 x 149.5 cm. Janssens and his workshop created several versions of the painting on offer for sale here, as can also be seen at the Chrysler Museum of Art in Norfolk, Virginia (inv. no. 71.459), at the Museum of Fine Arts in Budapest (inv. no. 731) or at Ampleforth Abbey in Yorkshire. Provenance: Sotheby's New York, October 14, 2020, lot 140 as Abraham Janssens. Exhibited: Cuenca, Fundación Antonio Pérez, Spain, 2010 - 2015 (on extended loan). Cuenca, Fundación Antonio Pérez, El fulgor de la mirada: Alfredo Castañeda. Abraham Janssens, April - May 2011.