BELLINI, Giovanni
(b. ca. 1426, Venezia, d. 1516, Venezia)

St Jerome in the Desert (detail)

c. 1450
Egg tempera on wood
Barber Institute of Fine Arts, Birmingham

The background serves as a poetic commentary on the engaging scene in the foreground, in which the ascetic saint sits outside his cave and preaches to his pet lion, while the poor beast complains to him of the huge thorn stuck in his paw.