St. Jerome

Lucas van Leyden

An item at Metropolitan Museum of Art

St. Jerome, his cardinal's hat on the floor beside him, reads a book in the wilderness. The cardinal's hat is a traditional reference to St. John's service as an advisor to Pope Damasus I. Near him lies the lion, a reference to the story from The Golden Legend, in which St. Jerome removed a thorn from the lion's paw. The foremost Netherlandish printmaker of the early sixteenth century, Lucas van Leyden began producing prints quite young. He was keenly aware of the work produced by the greatest printmaker of his day, the German Albrecht Dürer and, as he absorbed the lessons from Dürer, he responded to them in inventive ways rather than by mere copying. St. Jerome of 1513 is an early work by the artist and it seems likely that Lucas knew Dürer's engraving St. Jerome Penitent in the Wilderness, created about 1496 (19.73.69).

Drawings and Prints

An exhibit at Metropolitan Museum of Art

The Department’s vast collection of works on paper comprises approximately 21,000 drawings, 1.2 million prints, and 12,000 illustrated books created in Europe and the Americas from about 1400 to the present day. Since its foundation in 1916, the Department has been committed to collecting a wide range of works on paper, which includes both pieces that are incredibly rare and lauded for their aesthetic appeal, as well as material that is more popular, functional, and ephemeral. The broad scope of the department’s collecting encourages questions of connoisseurship as well as those pertaining to function and context, and demonstrates the vital role that prints, drawings, and illustrated books have played throughout history.

Metropolitan Museum of Art