Attributed to Juan de Valdés

Attributed to JUAN DE VALDÉS LEAL (Seville, 1622 - 1690).
"St. Jerome penitent.
Oil on canvas. Relined.
It presents restorations on the pictorial surface.
Provenance: Former collection Antonio Ramos Asensio (Seville).
Measurements: 124 x 103,5 cm.
This work represents a typical iconography of the Spain of the XVII century, in which we see Saint Jerónimo listening to the trumpet of the Apocalypse, whose presence is appreciated in the upper left zone of the scene. The saint appears in penitence, half naked and covered only by a red cloak, meditating in the desert with a human skull and writing the Holy Scriptures. Below is a lion in repose, one of the main iconographic attributes of the saint. As for the tonality, the author echoes the tenebrism of the time, although his painting shows a vaporous finish, which can be seen especially in the pictorial conception of the sky, or in the hair and beards of the characters, a resource that was common in Valdés Leal's painting, as can be seen in the treatment of St. Jerome. In fact, Valdés Leal immortalized the saint on several occasions as can be seen in his work "The Temptations of St. Jerome", which is currently in the Museum of Fine Arts in Seville or for example in the portrait of the saint that is in the Prado Museum in Madrid.
In spite of the difficult character with which he appears portrayed in the sources, the truth is that Valdés Leal's work is quite varied and is in line with the painting that was being done in his environment. We do not know at what date he moved to Cordoba, although it is likely that he had already received his first artistic training in his native city. It has been speculated that he was close to the workshop of Herrera el Viejo, and also to the art of the Cordovan Antonio del Castillo, as possible influences for his first known signed and dated work, the San Andrés de la iglesia de San Francisco de Córdoba, from 1647. In it he combined with visible success the monumentality of the figure of the saint with a naturalistic approach. In 1656 he settled in Seville, where he spent most of his life. In 1660 he was one of the founders of the Academy of Drawing, of which he became president in 1663. The following year Palomino established his trip to the court and to El Escorial, a journey that can still be understood as an apprenticeship, driven by his eagerness to know the works of the great masters present in the royal collections. In 1667 he joined the Brotherhood of Charity of Seville, whose founder had been Miguel de Mañara, the noble visionary author of the eschatological Discurso de la Verdad, to which Valdés would remain attached from then on. In 1671, Valdés Leal had the opportunity to work as an architect on the ephemeral decorations that the cathedral of Seville had installed to celebrate the canonization of Saint Ferdinand. Thanks to these works Palomino defines him as "a great draftsman, perspective and architect". He also made two engravings, reproducing his works in the cathedral, for Fernando Torres Farfán's book celebrating this event, which gives us an insight into his work as an architect. These are his most important works as a printmaker, although his engraving of the cathedral monstrance, a self-portrait and the posthumous image of Miguel de Mañara are also known. In 1672 he was in Cordoba, an occasion that Palomino took advantage of to meet him personally. This gives more value to the affirmation of the Cordovan treatise writer about the literary interest of Valdés Leal, because he makes him possess "the ornament of all the good letters, without forgetting those of poetry"....