''St. Jerome in His Study'' is an
oil on panel
A panel painting is a painting made on a flat panel of wood, either a single piece or a number of pieces joined together. Until canvas became the more popular support medium in the 16th century, panel painting was the normal method, when not paint ...
painting by German Renaissance artist
Albrecht Dürer, completed March 1521. It is now in the
Museu Nacional de Arte Antiga
The Museu Nacional de Arte Antiga (; MNAA), also known in English as the National Museum of Ancient Art, is a Portuguese national art museum located in Lisbon. With over 40,000 items spanning a vast collection of painting, sculpture, goldware, fu ...
of
Lisbon, Portugal.
History
The work was executed by Dürer during his stay in the Netherlands 1520–1521,
using an aged local man as model. A preparatory drawing exists in the
Albertina
The Albertina is a museum in the Innere Stadt (First District) of Vienna, Austria. It houses one of the largest and most important print rooms in the world with approximately 65,000 drawings and approximately 1 million old master prints, as well ...
of
Vienna
en, Viennese
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, timezone_DST ...
with an annotation of the man's age (93).
The artist donated the painting to the head of the Portuguese trade mission in the Netherlands, Rodrigo Fernandes de Almada. It remained in the latter's family collection until 1880, when it was donated to the current museum.
Description
Among Dürer's depiction of
St. Jerome
Jerome (; la, Eusebius Sophronius Hieronymus; grc-gre, Εὐσέβιος Σωφρόνιος Ἱερώνυμος; – 30 September 420), also known as Jerome of Stridon, was a Christian priest, confessor, theologian, and historian; he is com ...
, this is the one more resembling a portrait, with little space left for the study and its details (such as in his
1514 etching, where the saint is a small figure in the background).
The subject is portrayed with great care for details,
including the wrinkles to the white-yellowish beard. Also differently from the etching, the
memento mori suggestion of the finger above a skull has a greater visual relevance.
Details in the foreground include the inkpot at right and the bookrest at left, as well as a crucifix on the top left.
See also
*
List of paintings by Albrecht Dürer
The following is an incomplete list of paintings by the German painter and engraver Albrecht Dürer.
See also
* List of engravings by Albrecht Dürer
* List of woodcuts by Albrecht Dürer
Sources
*Wolf, Norbert. ''Albrecht Dürer''. Preste ...
References
Sources
*
External links
Page at the museum official website
{{DEFAULTSORT:Saint Jerome in His Study (Dürer, 1521)
Paintings by Albrecht Dürer
1521 paintings
Durer
Paintings in the National Museum of Ancient Art
Books in art
Skulls in art