Saint Jerome
Artist
Merisi Michelangelo called Caravaggio
(Milan 1571 - Porto Ercole 1610)
Type
painting
Period
'600
Inventory
56
Technique
oil on canvas, cm 116x153
Origin
Collection of Cardinal Scipione Borghese (1617)
Location
The painting was probably executed for Scipione Borghese – perhaps to express gratitude for the latter’s help when the artist was in trouble with the law (1605) – and was the first work by Caravaggio to enter the Borghese collection. Jerome was one of the most venerated saints during the Counter-Reformation, partly because of his choice of exile from Rome to dedicate himself to translating the Old Testament from Hebrew into Latin for the Vulgate. The figure is inserted in a composition dominated by parallel horizontal lines, and thus the saint’s head is placed on almost the same plane as the skull. The colours – essentially browns and whites, in addition to the extraordinary red of the cloak – are those used by the painter during his last years in Rome before his exile after he had killed a man.
