Penitent Saint Jerome with a Young Monk

Filippo Lippi's Penitent Saint Jerome with a Young Monk from around 1435 depicts Jerome in the desert — the Church Father who chose voluntary exile and penance as the environment for his great translation of the Bible into Latin. The young monk accompanying Jerome may be his disciple, providing a contrast of generations and spiritual states: the aged penitent in the harsh landscape and the young novice still forming his vocation. Lippi painted this during his early Carmelite period, when his own identity as a friar who was also a painter created a complex relationship with the tradition of saintly asceticism he depicted. The rocky desert landscape reflects Lippi's early attention to natural setting as a vehicle for spiritual narrative.

Lippi renders the penitent saint with careful anatomical observation and his characteristic soft modeling, set against a rocky landscape that shows the influence of early Netherlandish painting on Florentine artists.