St Jerome

Cesare da Sesto's Saint Jerome presents the desert Father in his characteristic wilderness setting, accompanied by the lion he tamed and displaying the cardinal's hat that anachronistically attributed to him as one of the doctors of the Church. Cesare da Sesto was among the most talented of Leonardo da Vinci's Milanese followers, and his travels to Rome and Sicily allowed him to absorb Roman High Renaissance influences that he later combined with his Leonardesque training. His Saint Jerome demonstrates the synthesis of Leonardesque figure modeling with Raphaelesque compositional clarity that characterized his mature style.

The painting demonstrates the technical conventions and artistic vocabulary of the period, with attention to composition, color, and the rendering of form appropriate to the subject.