Saint Jerome and the Lion: Predella Panel

Saint Jerome sits in the wilderness and draws a thorn out of the lion's paw. Painters usually showed the animal lying at the scholar's feet as a pet. Here Lippi paints the moment the story says their companionship began, when a lame lion walked into Jerome's monastery near Bethlehem, the other monks ran, and Jerome stayed to treat it.

Of the four predella scenes from the Pistoia altarpiece now in the National Gallery, this is the one the museum thinks Fra Filippo Lippi most probably painted himself, because it is finer than the others. The paint is very thin and has grown more translucent over time, so the underdrawing shows through, above all in the two figures in the background. A drawing by Lippi of a seated monk in the Uffizi in Florence may be an early idea for Jerome.