Saint Jerome with Virgin and Child in Glory

When Jacopo Bassano signed and dated this altarpiece in 1569, it stood over the main altar of the Reformed Franciscan friars' church in Asolo, a hill town north of Venice. He gave the friars a picture in two registers. In the foreground Saint Jerome kneels in a rocky landscape, the old scholar and hermit painted with the earthy, weathered realism Bassano was known for. Above him the Virgin and Child appear in a burst of golden light. That upper part has long divided scholars. Several read the workshop's hand in the Madonna in glory, and the art historian W. R. Rearick gave her to Jacopo's son Giambattista, then coming into his own. The picture left that altar during the Napoleonic suppressions of the early 19th century, when religious houses across the Veneto were closed and emptied, and it passed to the Accademia in Venice. Along the bottom the Latin signature still reads: Giacomus a Ponte, painter of Bassano, made this.