4x5 transparency scanned on Hasselblad Flextight X1 by Ed Pollard-2018.

Saint Jerome

Artist Abraham Janssens (Flemish, ca. 1575 - 1632)

Date1613

MediumOil on canvas

DimensionsOverall: 53 1/2 x 44 in. (135.9 x 111.8 cm)

ClassificationsEuropean art

Credit LineGift of Walter P. Chrysler, Jr.

Object number71.459

Terms

St. Jerome
Religion
Saints
Antwerp

Collections

European Art before 1945

On View

On view

DescriptionOil on canvas painting of Saint Jerome. He is depicted as a half-clad anchorite, with cross, skull, and Bible, as well as the red hat to indicate his rank as a cardinal. He is also depicted with a lion, in reference to the belief that Jerome tamed a lion in the wilderness by healing its paw.

Label TextAbraham Janssen Flemish (ca. 1575-1632) Saint Jerome, 1613 Oil on canvas Gift of Walter P. Chrysler, Jr. 71.459 Long venerated as one of the four learned Fathers of the Church, St. Jerome gained even greater prominence after the mid-16th century, when the Council of Trent designated his Latin translation of the Bible (the Vulgate) as the official text of the Catholic Church. Though the books depicted in Janssens' painting allude to the saint's fame as scholar and theologian, the work focuses on his role as penitent-the holy hermit who renounced the world and retired into the desert to pray. Janssens shows the saint in mournful contemplation deep within his wilderness cave. (His furrowed face is a virtual mask of lamentation. His head rests against an arm propped upon his knee-a posture long used by European artists to connote melancholic thought.) The skull, visible beneath his left arm, and the crucifix serve as aids to his meditation on death and the promise of eternal life through Christ's sacrifice on the cross. The brilliant red cardinal's hat alludes to Jerome's duties as an early priest of Rome, duties later assumed by the cardinals. The watchful lion is another of his attributes, referring to the legend in which the saint removes a thorn from a lion's paw. The grateful animal then becomes his faithful companion. After studying in Italy, Janssens returned to Antwerp in 1602 and quickly became one of the city's leading painters. In works like Saint Jerome he developed a taste for heroic, large-scale figures, dramatically lighted and emphatically sculptural in effect.