Cleveland Museum of Art
St. Jerome in Penitence
Albrecht DürerLinkedCulture matchlcp-91cf98b472c5
- Date
- c. 1497
- Medium
- engraving
- Culture
- Germany, late 15th Century early 16th Century
- Department
- Prints
- Institution
- Cleveland Museum of Art
- Object ID
- 142352
From LinkedCulture
A gaunt Saint Jerome kneels bare-chested before a small crucifix, his right hand raised to strike his chest with a stone, while his lion rests quietly at his side. Albrecht Dürer made this engraving around 1497, when he was just in his mid-twenties, and already filling the wilderness behind Jerome with precisely observed Northern European ferns, grasses, and conifers. That botanical detail is not decoration. It signals a turning point in European art, where artists began studying the natural world directly rather than relying on symbolic convention.
Written by LinkedCulture for its video on this object. Machine-generated (claude-sonnet-4-6), not yet reviewed by a person. It is not part of the museum’s record.
From the Cleveland Museum of Art record
This print shows Albrecht Dürer’s interpretation of Saint Jerome in the wilderness. In this image, the saint is a gaunt penitent who kneels in front of a small crucifix placed on top of a tree stump (a reference to Christ’s cross and the tree of knowledge), while holding a rock in his right hand. Jerome was said to have beat his chest with a rock to alleviate his frequent hallucinations. Dürer included several different plant species, all Northern European in origin, displaying his dedication to the careful study and depiction of real plants. According to legend, after he aided a lion by pulling a thorn from its paw, it became Saint Jerome's permanent companion.
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Provenance & credit
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- Credit line
- Mr. and Mrs. Charles G. Prasse Collection, fiftieth anniversary gift
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