Saint Jerome (c. 1638–40): Art, History and Details

Saint Jerome (c. 1638–40) is in the Cleveland Museum of Art collection. The museum's creator attribution is Jusepe de Ribera (Spanish, 1591–1652).

The work and its context

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

Saint Jerome (about ad 347–420) translated biblical texts into Latin. Although he sometimes appears as a scholar in his study, Ribera represents him here as a penitent who withdrew to the desert, beating his chest with a stone to emulate Christ’s suffering and contemplating a skull symbolizing human vanity. Working in Naples, Ribera enthusiastically adapted Caravaggio’s characteristic use of light and dark and naturalistic models.

Object facts

• Title: Saint Jerome
• Date: c. 1638–40
• Creator attribution: Jusepe de Ribera (Spanish, 1591–1652)
• Culture: Spain
• Type: Painting
• Technique: oil on canvas
• Dimensions: Framed: 150 x 121.5 x 9 cm (59 1/16 x 47 13/16 x 3 9/16 in.); Unframed: 129 x 100.3 cm (50 13/16 x 39 1/2 in.)
• Collection: P - Spanish before 1800
• Department: European Painting and Sculpture
• Accession number: 1961.219

A detail from the museum

Ribera signed the painting on the spine of the book in which Jerome will write.

Collection credit

Mr. and Mrs. William H. Marlatt Fund

Further reading listed by the museum

• Harry G. Sperling, letter to Henry S. Francis, Oct. 6, 1961, in CMA curatorial file.
• Stock cards, 1897–1973, and clipping file, F. Kleinberger, & Co., European Paintings, the Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York, NY.
• Cleveland Museum of Art. European Paintings of the 16th, 17th, and 18th Centuries. Cleveland: Cleveland Museum of Art, 1982.

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.