This small double-sided painting was most probably made for private worship. The front shows Saint Jerome kneeling in front of a crucifix wedged into the stump of a tree. He beats his chest with a rock in empathy with Christ’s Passion (his torture and death at the Crucifixion). The lion resting beside him was his companion from the moment he removed a thorn from its foot.
Dürer’s version of the desert – or wilderness – in which the saint lived for years is particularly northern European. The grasses and flowers around his knees, for example, are closely observed and include a number of different varieties. Two little goldfinches perch by the edge of a stream, one drinking from it (the bird was traditionally a symbol of Christ’s Passion).
The reverse depicts a dark sky and what might be planets, a comet or meteorite or an eclipse, possibly a reference to Saint John the Evangelist’s descriptions of the end of the world as recorded in the Book of Revelation.
There is an unidentified seal on the reverse, top left, showing an inverted chevron with three rounded shapes.
NG 6563 is conceivably to be identified with the work, possibly but not certainly a painting, owned by George Villiers, 1st Duke of Buckingham (1592–1628) and recorded in the inventory taken in 1635 of the pictures and other works of art at York House, London under the name ‘Albert Duerse’: firstly ‘Two little heads Cutt in wood’, followed by, and less certainly to be attributed to Dürer, ‘A little piece with a lyon’. Buckingham’s pictures were widely dispersed: some were bought by Diego Duarte (died 1690), a jeweller and picture dealer in Antwerp, and his inventory of 1683 mentions as no. 169 ‘A little piece of a St Jerome with a lion’, as well a Magdalen, with the name of Scorel appended; it is uncertain whether Scorel (that is, Jan van Scorel, 1495–1652) is intended to apply to both pictures listed as no. 169 and if this is two pictures or one. There are further early references to paintings of Saint Jerome by Dürer, but none can be identified with NG 6563.
The first certain reference to NG 6563 occurs in the records of the collections of John Staniforth Beckett (1794–1868) of Barnsley (later Torquay) as ‘St Jerome Gio Fr Caroto 13th October 1849 of Farrer £30’, when it was bought from the prominent dealer Henry Farrer and identified as the work of the Italian painter Giovanni Francesco Caroto (about 1480–about 1555). John Staniforth Beckett was the son of Joseph Beckett of Barnsley who married Mary Staniforth in 1785, and the nephew of Sir John Beckett of Leeds, 1st Baronet (1743–1826). The painting passed to the family of his niece Elizabeth Beckett (about 1826–1885), daughter of Sir Thomas Beckett, 3rd Baronet (1779–1847) and his wife Caroline, sister of John Staniforth Beckett. Elizabeth Beckett married Sir Henry Hickman Bacon, 10th and 11th Baronet (1820–1872) of Raveningham Hall, Norfolk in 1853 and the painting remained with the Bacon family until 1996 when it was purchased from the Bacon Family Trust with the assistance of the Heritage Lottery Fund, the National Art-Collections Fund and Sir Paul Getty Jr through the American Friends of the National Gallery.
Text extracted from the ‘Provenance’ section of the catalogue entry in Susan Foister, ‘National Gallery Catalogues: The German Paintings before 1800’, London 2024; for further information, see the full catalogue entry.
C. Baker and T. Henry, The National Gallery: Complete Illustrated Catalogue, London 2001
This is a twentieth-century double-sided replica frame, made at the Gallery, in the style of an early sixteenth-century Northern European frame.
The front has an ebonised fillet and gilt ogee on three sides, with the lower section designed as a sill.
If you know more about this painting or have spotted an error, please contact us. Please note that exhibition histories are listed from 2009 onwards. Bibliographies may not be complete; more comprehensive information is available in the National Gallery Library.
