Saint Jerome in Prayer

After imperial troops sacked Rome in 1527, the Venetian painter Sebastiano del Piombo, then working in the city, began painting on stone. The practice spread, and by the early 1600s slate had become a favourite support in Rome for small pictures meant for private prayer. This one is only 44 by 36 centimetres, and the museum attributes it, cautiously, to the Roman painter Giacomo Rocca. Saint Jerome kneels on bare ground and presses a stone to his chest as he looks up at Christ on the cross. The lion resting at the foot of the cross is the one he was said to have healed by pulling a thorn from its paw. Beside it lie a skull and an open book, perhaps the Latin Bible he translated, and in the corner sits a red cardinal's hat, a title Jerome never actually held.