Saint Jerome in the Wilderness

Workshop of Paolo Veronese · 1585–90

Medium

Oil on canvas

Original size

134.8 × 176.6 cm (53 1/8 × 69 7/8 in.); Framed: 163.2 × 203.9 × 6.4 cm (64 1/4 × 80 1/4 × 2 1/2 in.)

Currently held

Art Institute of Chicago

Movement

Mannerism

Few paintings capture the tension between spiritual retreat and earthly beauty quite like this depiction of Saint Jerome, where rich Venetian colour and dramatic light pull the viewer into a scene of solitary devotion. Paolo Veronese was among the great colourists of the Italian Renaissance, celebrated for his luminous palettes and sumptuous handling of fabric and flesh. Works produced by his workshop continued in that tradition — maintaining the loose, confident brushwork and warm tonal harmonies that defined the Veronese studio's output in its final decade. This canvas demonstrates the workshop's characteristic approach: Jerome's aged figure rendered with quiet dignity against a brooding landscape, the lion at his feet treated almost tenderly rather than as mere symbol. Veronese himself was famously called before the Inquisition in 1573 over perceived irreverence in a religious painting — a reminder of how seriously contemporaries took the devotional function of images like this one, where every compositional choice carried theological weight. Our hand-painted oil reproduction is made on stretched canvas using traditional pigments, faithfully rendering the warm ochres, deep shadows, and subtle glazing that give the original its contemplative atmosphere. Each brushstroke is laid by hand, producing a painting that lives in the room the way a print never can.