Property from a private collection.

MANNER OF JOOS VAN CLEVE (CLEVE C. 1485-C. 1540 ANTWERP)
Saint Jerome in His Study
oil on panel
31.5 x 24 cm

Joos van Cleve painted several images of Saint Jerome, the present panel draws close comparison to the composition "Saint Jerome in His Study by Joos van Cleve," Record of the Art Museum, held by Princeton University 49, no. 2 (1990).

Jerome translated Greek and Hebrew biblical texts into the standard Latin versions that eventually formed the Vulgate. This melancholy attitude, and his gesture toward the skull suggest that he emulated Albrecht Dürer’s Saint Jerome panel of 1521. The skull presents the specter of death, and the motto homo bvlla (“Man is a bubble”) a motif of mortality.
Joos van Cleve painted a picture of Saint Jerome in his study surrounded by objects and is associated with more than a dozen versions of this image.
Grasping his head, Jerome points at a skull, beside him is a snuffed-out candle; reminders of the passage of time.

The present composition is derived from Albrecht Durer's Saint Jerome painted for Ruy Fernández de Almeida, Ambassador of King John III of Portugal, in Antwerp in 1521, now in the Museu Nacional de Arte Antiga, Lisbon. Copies and versions exist by artists such as Quentin Matsys and notably Joos van Cleve.
see: John Oliver Hand, "Saint Jerome in His Study by Joos van Cleve," Record of the Art Museum, Princeton University 49, no. 2 (1990): p. 2-10, pp. 2–3, figs. 1–3; p. 7, fig. 7.