Saint Jerome

The portrait in the partially gilded frame shows a man in profile with shoulder-length hair and full beard. The painter has concentrated on the depiction of the man’s head and upper body. Clad in a robe, the portrait subject holds before him a skull in a white cloth, which is missing the lower jaw. The man has rosy, though gaunt, cheeks and his gaze is directed so intensely upwards that one can almost only see the whites of his eyeballs. This painting is believed to come from the school of Peter Paul Rubens and presumably depicts Saint Jerome (c. 347-420 AD), one of the four Church Fathers and translator of the Bible into Latin (Vulgate). As a scholar and ascetic, he retreated into the desert in order to lead a life of study and penance. The skull in his hand symbolises vanitas, the impermanence of earthly existence and the need to reflect on the divine. His gaze upwards expresses the longing for divine enlightenment.