Saint Jerome in the Wilderness

Description The theologian St. Jerome (ca. 340-420) is shown meditating on the cross of Christ during his four years of penitence in the Syrian desert when he was in his 30s. However, his great service to the Church was his translation of the Bible, made when he was much older, when he was also said to have tamed a wild lion who became his companion. Artists often combined these compelling images. Influenced by the strident naturalism of Caravaggio (1571-1610), the unusual, close-up, naturalistic view of the aging body of the saint, and in particular the soles of his dirty feet, call attention to the artist's readiness to shock the viewer in conveying the deprivations of the desert. For more information on this panel, please see Federico Zeri's 1976 catalogue no. 318, pp. 446-447.

Exhibitions

• Going for Baroque. The Walters Art Gallery, Baltimore. 1995-1996.

Provenance Don Marcello Massarenti Collection, Rome [date and mode of acquisition unknown] [1897 catalogue: no. 221, as G. A. Razzi, evidently G. A. Bazzi, called il Sodoma]; Henry Walters, Baltimore, 1902, by purchase; Walters Art Museum, 1931, by bequest.

Credit Acquired by Henry Walters with the Massarenti Collection, 1902