Our knowledge of Jusepe de Ribera’s Roman period (1606–1616) has been considerably expanded and transformed in recent years. In 2014 the Städel Museum in Frankfurt acquired a crucial masterpiece by Ribera dating from the last years of his stay in Rome: Saint James the Greater (c. 1615–1616). This article discusses in great detail the hitherto little-studied painting that had been in a private collection and thus inaccessible to scholars before. In particular, it examines Ribera’s Roman studio, the composition, artistic conception, iconography and style of the Saint James, as well as its reception by his French and Spanish contemporaries (especially in the Saint Thomas by Velázquez in Orléans).

This ‘close reading’ of the painting is interwoven with a thorough analysis and reconsideration of the more general debate on Ribera’s years in Rome, initiated by an article by Gianni Papi in 2002. Papi’s point of departure was the enigmatic workgroup Roberto Longhi had once brought together under the notname ‘Master of the Judgement of Solomon’ whose (fictitious) œuvre Papi attributed to the young Ribera.

Owing to its temporal proximity to Ribera’s well-documented Neapolitan phase, its exceptionally close stylistic connection to confirmed works, and its outstanding quality, the Frankfurt Saint James the Greater now turns out to be a kind of touchstone for other attributions and for a proper evaluation of Ribera’s Roman years.