St Jerome Reading in the Desert

Palma il Giovane's Saint Jerome Reading in the Desert from around 1590 reflects the younger generation's continuation of Venetian painting traditions after Titian's death. Palma, who completed Titian's unfinished Pietà, was the most prolific painter in late sixteenth-century Venice. Palma il Giovane, who lived until 1628 and had completed Titian's unfinished Pietà after the great master's death in 1576, bridged the Venetian High Renaissance and the Baroque, his prolific output sustaining the demand for Venetian religious painting into the seventeenth century.

The atmospheric landscape and warm, Venetian palette demonstrate Palma's absorption of Titian's techniques, with the solitary saint rendered in a contemplative, twilight setting.