Pittore caravaggesco attivo in Italia nel XVII secolo

The painting, traditionally attributed in the collection of provenance to the Valencian painter active in Rome and Naples Jusepe de Ribera (Xativa 1591-Naples 1652) is placed by Professor De Castris around 1625, in the years of the French artist's maturity, following an in-depth analysis of the work, examined in person. The scholar, in support of the attribution and dating, proposes as possible comparisons "the Moses of the Kunsthistoriches Museum in Vienna, the Saint Mark of the Palace of Versailles or the Saint Joseph and the Angel of a private collection, all three characterized by the same formula of strongly highlighted Caravaggesque naturalism, attentive to the rendering of wrinkles and the old age of the bodies, the volumes, the papers, sensitive to the solutions proposed by Ribera in Rome in the years between 1613 and 1616, but also characterized by original and artist-specific traits, for example in the gestures and speaking attitudes of the figures and in the rendering of the gray beards and the long locks of curly hair. The three paintings cited are all dated by critics between 1624 and 1627 and this also appears to be the date of the present Saint Jerome, a theme with which Valentin has often measured himself"

K. Christiansen- A. Lemoine Valentin de Boulogne. Reinventer Caravage exhibition catalogue Paris 1997, pp 164-

186, nn 27-29, 35