Saint Jerome and Mary Magdalene

This beautifully preserved sheet bears, in the shadow at lower right, the monogram VBL, associating the drawing with a glass painter known as the Monogrammist VBL. Examples of stained glass and reverse glass painting bearing this monogram and attributable to the artist on stylistic grounds are found today in private collections in Fribourg; the Vitrocentre Romont; the Museum für Angewandte Kunst in Cologne; and the Museo di San Martino in Naples. His work as a glass painter has already been linked with Christoph Murer (1558-1614): a monogrammed window with the arms of fellow glass painter Peter Heinricher features figures based direclty on a design by Murer in the Met's collection (1994.24). The manner of drawing in the present sheet also strongly recalls Murer's designs (see also 1995.298 and 2007.177). At present, the only other known drawing bearing the VBL monogram is in the collection of the Staatsgalerie Stuttgart (inv. 1417); this work, drawn in brown ink in a rather different manner from the present sheet, is a partial copy of Raphael's Three Graces in the Villa Farnesina in Rome.

In recent years, the Monogrammist VBL has tentatively been identified with a Viktor Büeler, born in Soleure in 1605, active in Fribourg in the 1620s, and documented in 1635, under the name Vittorio Billa, in Naples. His father, Wolfgang, was also a glass painter.



The Christian religious figures Saint Jerome and Mary Magdalene--each associated with penance and absolution--were occasionally paired in works of art in various media. This drawing is very likely a design for a stained glass window featuring Saint Jerome and Mary Magdalene as either pendant or flanking figures.

See Uta Bergmann, "Der Monogrammist VBL—ein Freiburger Glasmaler?," in Die Freiburger Glasmalerei des 16. Bis 18. Jahrhunderts. Corpus Vitrearum: Schweiz, Reihe Neuzeit, vol. 6 (Bern, etc: Peter Land, 2014), pp. 412-19, and Elisa Ambrosio, "L'art du monogrammiste VBL: vitraux armorieìs et peintures sous verre dans les demeures suisses, italiennes et espagnoles entre 1625 et 1650,” in Le vitrail dans la demeure des origines aÌ nos jours: vitrer et orner la fenêtre: actes du XXVIIIe colloque international du Corpus vitrearum, Troyes 4-8 juillet 2016 (Ghent: Snoeck, 2018), pp. 324-29.





JSS, 4/21/2022