St. Jerome in Penitence

Saint Jerome was one of Albrecht Dürer’s favorite subjects, appearing in no fewer than six compositions. Artists who looked to Dürer for inspiration would have studied these representations of the saint. Dürer depicts the saint in the rugged Syrian landscape accompanied by a lion. The ferocious beast became Jerome’s constant companion when the saint removed a thorn from its paw. The realistic treatment of the irregular, craggy surface of the cavernous cliffs suggests that Dürer based the setting on his studies of the quarries around his hometown of Nuremberg.