Minneapolis Institute of Art
Saint Jerome in Penitence
Albrecht DürerLinkedCulture matchlcp-840f7214ff34
- Date
- c. 1496–97
- Medium
- Engraving
- Department
- European Art
- Institution
- Minneapolis Institute of Art
- Object ID
- 47048
From LinkedCulture
A bare-chested saint raises a stone to beat his own flesh, yet the real subject here might be the wildflowers at his feet. In this engraving from around 1496 to 1497, Albrecht Dürer placed Saint Jerome in a penitential wilderness and then filled it with mossy ground, jagged Alpine rock, and a distant town rendered with almost scientific precision. The lion rests calmly nearby while Jerome suffers, but Dürer's attention is clearly on the natural world around them. This early print signals one of the Renaissance's most restlessly observant eyes.
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 Minneapolis Institute of Art record
As a desert hermit, Jerome learned Hebrew from a monk (a convert from Judaism) to distract him from his sexual appetites. When that didn't work, he turned to self-torture, which is why he often holds a rock. Said his friend Saint Augustine, Three times every day he beat his flesh so hard that rivers of blood flowed from his body. In this early print, Albrecht Dürer used Jerome's exile as an opportunity to render the fantastic art of nature that he found in the Alpine landscape. Germany, Europe
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Provenance & credit
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- Credit line
- Gift of Albert and Parker Trostel
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