Page 80 - The mystery of faith

The saint’s face is modelled with careful attention to the individual features. The domed brow, slightly
furrowed in concentration, the articulated ears that follow the downward line of the knitted eyebrows,
the upward roll of the eyes and slightly parted lips are all delicately and distinctly moulded, and yet
seamlessly make up an expressive, almost psychological portrait of the saint. The age and gravitas
expressed in Jerome’s face are seamlessly juxtaposed with the musculature of the torso, subtly modelled
to suggest both the flaccidity of age and the strength of youth, a dichotomy that is also suggested by
the tension of the tightly clasped hands, held close to the face, which contrast with the relaxed pose of
the slightly extended legs, crossed at the ankles. In this work, the brothers appear to have added a
further dimension to Jerome’s recognizable anchorite role to depict the saint as not only a devout
intellectual, but also a tired and aged man, who now longs for his soul’s release from the physical world.
Such an approach to the subject would have been entirely in keeping with the sculpture’s original
intended purpose, which was probably for a private oratory, where it could have been closely
appreciated.

The modelling of the hair, particularly around the bald pate, and the beard, is more naturalistic than
the more Mannerist solution the brothers employed in another version of the subject in Madrid in the
Granados Collection.1 Here, the beard is divided into two sinuously tapered sections and its transition
to the modelling of the face shows evident tracks of the modelling stick; a feature that is also evident
in another version in the San Jerónimo Monastery in Granada, which was formerly attributed to Alonso
Cano (Fig. 5),2 but which should now be recognized as an autograph work by the brothers dating to
the 1620s. Several other similar versions of the subject in Granada, Madrid and elsewhere, also
executed in polychromed terracotta and featuring flat pictorial backgrounds, have traditionally been
attributed to Alonso Cano, again based on the received wisdom that any works in this particular
technique of such high quality, made in seventeenth-century Granada could only be by Cano. This
prejudice was given further weight by Cano’s recognized penchant for including deep red draperies in
both his painted and sculpted works.3 However, we believe that the aforementioned 1619 work in
Puerto Rico, the present exhibited work from 1628, and the sculpture in the San Jerónimo Monastery
in Granada attributed to Cano should all be ascribed to the brothers, who, indeed, must therefore be
credited with introducing this version of the Penitent Saint Jerome to seventeenth-century Granadine
sculpture.

Again, it should be underlined that despite being Granadine by birth, Cano moved to Seville when he
was thirteen, where he trained as an architect, painter and sculptor in the workshops of Francisco
Pacheco and Juan Martínez Montañés. Cano lived in Seville until 1637, when he was summoned to
court by the Conde Duque de Olivares, but it was not until 1652 that he finally re-established his career
in Granada, subsequently forming what came to be known as the School of Granada. During the 1620s
when the present exhibited sculpture was made, as well as the versions of the Penitent Saint Jerome and
Saint John the Baptist in Granada, and the other two dated works also exhibited here (cat. nos. 3 and
4), Cano was still in Seville making sculptures under the influence of Martínez Montañés. These
sculptures included such works as, for instance, those he made for the main altarpiece for the Church
of Santa María de la Oliva in Lebrija, which were commissioned in 1629. Therefore, we must reject the

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