Saint Jerome and the Lion (From the former Church of St. Peter in Erfurt) (c. 1495): Art, History and Details

Saint Jerome and the Lion (From the former Church of St. Peter in Erfurt) (c. 1495) is in the Cleveland Museum of Art collection. The museum's creator attribution is Tilman Riemenschneider (German, active Würzburg, c. 1460–1531).

The work and its context

The museum's open-access catalogue describes the work:

This statue shows an important moment from a story about Saint Jerome. One day Jerome encountered a hurt lion. He removed a thorn from its paw, and the grateful animal became Jerome’s lifelong companion. This sculpture is made of alabaster, a soft stone suited for carving fine detail. Look closely! You can see flecks of paint and gold from when it was originally painted. Conservators looked at this sculpture under a microscope and found that the lion once had a red mouth, yellow fur, and black claws.

Object facts

• Title: Saint Jerome and the Lion (From the former Church of St. Peter in Erfurt)
• Date: c. 1495
• Creator attribution: Tilman Riemenschneider (German, active Würzburg, c. 1460–1531)
• Culture: Germany, Würzburg, late 15th Century
• Type: Sculpture
• Technique: alabaster, traces of polychromy
• Dimensions: Overall: 37.8 x 28.1 x 15.9 cm (14 7/8 x 11 1/16 x 6 1/4 in.)
• Collection: MED - Gothic
• Department: Medieval Art
• Accession number: 1946.82

A detail from the museum

In the story Saint Jerome encounters a fearsome lion, here depicted as diminutive, gentle, and submissive.

Collection credit

Purchase from the J. H. Wade Fund

Further reading listed by the museum

• Generalversammlung der Katholiken Deutschlands. . Katalog der Ausstellung für christliche Kunst: im ehem. Kurfürstl. Schlosse, 20. August - 4. September. 1892.
• Lelong, C. Catalogue des objets d'art et de haute curiosité, de l'antiquité, du Moyen-Age et de la Renaissance ..., ivories, émaux, tapisseries, tableaux ..., dépendant des collections de Mme C. Lelong 8, 9 et 10 décembre 1902. 1902.
• Hessen-Kunst (1909).

View the collection record

See the museum's photographs and full catalogue entry. Catalogue text is reproduced from the Cleveland Museum of Art's open-access data, with HTML formatting removed. This object and its supplied image are designated CC0.