El Greco
Saint Jerome as a Cardinal
Circa 1610–14
Oil on canvas; 42 1/2 x
34 1/4 in.
(108 x 87 cm)
Metropolitan Museum of
Art
Robert Lehman
Collection, 1975 (1975.1.146)
Cloaked
in the red vestments of a cardinal, Saint Jerome rests his hands on an
open book, an allusion to his translation of the Bible from Greek to
Latin in the fifth century. Artists have generally shown Saint Jerome
as penitent ascetic, recalling his retreat to the Syrian desert. But by
the fifteenth century, under the influence of Italian humanism, Jerome
takes on the guise of a scholar."
-- Metropolitan Museum of Art
More of St. Jerome
Photographed at the
Metropolitan by Richard Stracke