The Conversion of Paula by Saint Jerome

The Conversion of Paula by Saint Jerome (1898) depicts a remarkable pairing: Saint Jerome, the formidable fourth-century scholar and translator of the Bible into the Latin Vulgate, and Paula, the wealthy Roman widow who became his most devoted disciple and patron before accompanying him to Bethlehem and founding monasteries there. The subject combines the Alma-Tadema's characteristic Roman social world—educated, wealthy late Roman aristocracy—with early Christian religious conversion, showing the transformation of Roman civic life into Christian dedication. At this late date Alma-Tadema rarely turned to religious subjects, making this an unusual and historically ambitious work within his output. Jerome's intellectual force confronting Paula's aristocratic Roman refinement creates a charged encounter of two worlds: the ancient civic culture he loved to paint and the new religious civilization displacing it.

Oil on canvas with the complex challenge of staging an intellectual and spiritual encounter between two historically significant individuals. Alma-Tadema would render both the Roman architectural setting and the transitional material culture of fourth-century Rome with his characteristic archaeological care, while using figures' postures to convey the dynamic of persuasion and reception.