Lot 8

Sir Edgar Speyer, 1st Bt. (1862-1932)
Private collection, Holland
Alfred Brod Gallery, London (The Brod Gallery label verso)
Private collection, London, after 1964
Thence by descent
Christie's, London, Old Master & British Paintings, 4 July 2012, lot 101
where presumably purchased by Robert Compton Jones (accompanied by a copy of the auction catalogue)

Annual Spring Exhibition, Alfred Brod Gallery, 12 March - 24 April 1964, no. 10

Berenson, B., Italian Painters of the Renaissance: Venetian School, London, 1957, I, p. 15, pl. 591, as Marco Basaiti.

RELATED WORKS
Marco Basaiti or Cima da Conegliano, Saint Jerome in the Wilderness c.1510, oil on canvas, 98.8 x 133.3cm, The Walters Art Museum, Baltimore USA

Giovanni Bellini, Saint Jerome Reading in the Desert, 1480. Oil on panel, 145 cm × 114 cm, Uffizi Gallery, Florence, Italy

LOT ESSAY:
Marco Basaiti was a Venetian painter of Albanian origin. He became a member of the Venetian painter's guild in 1530, and there are dated paintings from 1496 to 1527. He may have been a pupil of Alvise Vivarini and after his death in contact with Cima da Conegliano and Giovanni Bellini. Basaiti's figures usually have the strong volumetric forms typical of Alvise, but the atmospheric landscape settings are close to Cima, while the compositions and the soft, warm tones in many of Basaiti's paintings are derived from Giovanni.(1)

In the Contini Bonacassi Saint Jerome of 1480 in the Uffizi, Giovanni Bellini merged the traditional subjects of Saint Jerome in his study and Saint Jerome in the desert to create a new pictorial type where the saint is reading a large book in a landscape, alluding to his translation of the bible into Latin (the Vulgate). Bellini establishes a contrast between nature (Jerome's hermitage) and civilisation (the town beyond).(2) This is the model being followed here, notably in the pose of the saint, the head of the lion he befriended in shadow, and the disposition of the landscape.

The attribution to Basaiti derives from Bernard Berenson, and does not seem to have been reassessed in subsequent scholarship.(3) A work of similar subject and format in the Walter's Art Museum, Baltimore, follows Bellini in showing the pages of the book, whereas in our painting it is seen from the back. It shows the influence of Giorgione, and although it had been attributed to Basaiti it was given by Federico Zeri to Cima da Conegliano and dated c. 1510, the year of Giorgione's death.(4) The landscape in our painting has a Giorgonesque breadth and softness, but in most other respects, especially the figure of Jerome and the rocky foreground, it looks back to Bellini. Such disjunctions of style are characteristic of Basaiti, but comparisons with his secure paintings, such as the Calling of the Sons of Zebedee (signed and dated 1510) in the Accademia, Venice, are not conclusive, and given the strongly Belliniesque conception of our painting, its attribution within the school of Bellini may need to be reconsidered.

Sir Edgar Speyer was a German-born British financier and philanthropist who supported many of the greatest musicians of the day and contributed to the Whitechapel Art Gallery.

David R. Marshall

(1) Mauro, L., "Basaiti [Basiti, Basitus, Baxaiti, Baxiti], Marco." Grove Art Online. 2003; Accessed 30 Oct. 2025. https://www.oxfordartonline.com/groveart/view/10.1093/ gao/9781884446054.001.0001/oao-9781884446054-e-7000006679
(2) Belting, H., 'St. Jerome in Venice: Giovanni Bellini and the Dream of Solitary Life', I Tatti Studies in the Italian Renaissance, Vol. 17, No. 1 (Spring 2014), pp. 5-33
(3) Berenson, B., Italian Painters of the Renaissance: Venetian School, London, 1957, I, p. 15, pl. 591,as Marco Basaiti. Berenson's photo is in the Berenson archive at Villa I Tatti, The Harvard Center for Italian Renaissance Studies. It is not discussed in Bernard Bonario, 'Marco Basaiti:a study of the Venetian painter and a catalogue of his works', PhD diss., University of Michigan ProQuest Dissertations & Theses, 1974. On the back of the Berenson photo is written, among other notes, 'Prov. Dutch Coll.'; 'Alfred Brod Gall. Annual Spring exh. March 12- April 24, 1964 n. 10 repr.', 'With Bellini material or better Basaiti' and 'Dr. William Suida NEW YORK'. The Brod Gallery in London was active from 1954 to 1967. The photo may be earlier than 1964, and reveals that there have been subsequent interventions. William Suida (1877-1969) was an Austrian-American art historian and collector.
(4) Zeri, F., with condition notes by Elisabeth C. G. Packard, Italian paintings in the Walters