Saint Jerome in the Wilderness

Saint Jerome in the Wilderness, 1506 (?)

oil on panel
Musée du Louvre, Département des Peintures, Paris

An itinerant artist who forsook worldly pleasures, Lotto particularly identified with Saint Jerome, the reputed founder of Western monasticism. This image of the penitent saint in a rugged but poetic landscape is one of four paintings of the saint in the exhibition. Peering from behind a rock at left is Jerome's faithful companion, the lion from whose paw the saint extracted a thorn.