Mountainous Landscape with Saint Jerome

Paul Bril painted this in 1592 on a small sheet of copper, whose smooth surface suits the finest detail. He was working in Rome by then, yet the view belongs to a Flemish habit of the whole century, a landscape invented rather than observed, fading from brown rocks through green to far blue mountains. Saint Jerome, the scholar who translated the Bible into Latin, kneels in penance at the mouth of a cave in the lower left, a hand pressed to his chest. His books lie open beside his red cardinal's hat, and the head of his lion shows in the shadows. In the valley camels and a donkey carry packs along the road near an old stone bridge, while shepherds rest by their flock. Bril signed the front with his initials and scratched them, with the date, into the back.