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Saint Jerome

Johann (Jan) Pfister

Basic information

ID: С-I-898
Author: Johann (Jan) Pfister
Name: Saint Jerome
Date of creation: 1630s
Country: Ukraine
Technique: carving
Material: wood
Dimensions: 153 x 50 x 38 cm (height x width x depth)

Additionally

Type: sculpture
Genre: religious
Plot: Saint Jerome Evangelist
Provenance: Bishche village, Ternopil region, Church of the Assumption of the Virgin Mary

Information about author

Author: Johann (Jan) Pfister
Artist's lifetime: 1573–1640/1642
Biography: Johann (Jan) Pfister (Jan Hanusz-Snycerz) – a sculptor of German origin, was born in 1573 in the city of Breslau (now Wrocław, Poland) into the family of the painter and sculptor Georg Pfister. He studied under master craftsmen from the Netherlands and Germany (Hans Fleiser, Friedrich Gross, Gerhardt Hendrik). Pfister is considered the most outstanding sculptor of the turn of the 16th–17th centuries who worked in the territories of present-day Ukraine and Poland. He worked predominantly in marble and alabaster, and less frequently in wood. He executed his finest works in Lviv, Berezhany, and Tarnów.
Starting from 1615, commissioned by Adam Hieronim Sieniawski, he began working in Berezhany on the tomb monuments of the noble Sieniawski family: Adam Hieronim and his three sons – Aleksander, Mikołaj, and Prokop. He led a woodcarving school in the town. Working as the court sculptor to the Sieniawskis, he carved altar compositions in the church of the Assumption of the Blessed Virgin Mary in the village of Bishche in the Ternopil region, which also belonged to the family. The master worked on the decoration of the altar during the 1630s. Pfister proved himself a highly professional artist who took his first creative steps under the influence of German-Netherlandish Mannerism.

Object description

The figure of Saint Jerome is one of the altar sculptures of the Church of the Assumption of the Virgin Mary in the village of Bishche. The peculiarity of the figures of the main altar is that instead of the usual images of prophets, apostles or evangelists, the author reproduced the sponsors of the Sieniawski family: Hieronim, Elzbieta, Mikolaj, and Katarzyna. The full-length sculpture of a man is executed professionally. The Mannerist style features in the capricious perspective and excessively elongated proportions of the figure are characteristic of Pfister's style. The frontality of the figure is enhanced by the folds of garments, which fall vertically. Saint Jerome's face impresses with the thoroughness of reproduction – a high open forehead, well-defined eyebrows, and a magnificent beard that falls on his chest in soft waves. The sculpture conveys the portrait features of Adam Hieronim Sieniawski, with whose assistance, as documented, Pfister stayed in Berezhany since 1612. The man is depicted in the image of Mark the Evangelist, as evidenced by the sculptural image of the head of a lion – a symbol of the Evangelist. The author skillfully conveyed the mood of the composition with the help of soft lines.

Legal regulation

Borys Voznytskyi Lviv National Art Gallery

Saint Jerome

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