St. Jerome as a Cardinal

In 1625 Rubens was in Paris, delivering the last of a cycle of enormous canvases on the life of the queen mother Marie de' Medici, and starting the diplomatic errands that would take up much of his next decade. Between the big commissions he also painted heads like this one, quickly, on a small oak panel with the brush marks left showing. Jerome wears the red hat and robes of a cardinal, which he never was. He was a fourth-century scholar who translated the Bible into Latin for Pope Damasus, and later painters dressed him in the costume of the Renaissance churchmen who did that sort of work. The panel belonged to the Admiral of Castile in Madrid, and in 1705 it was bought by the Archduke Charles, who was then in Spain pressing his claim to the Spanish throne. He lost that claim and became Holy Roman Emperor instead, and the picture is recorded in the imperial gallery in Vienna by 1730.