{"id":129371,"date":"2026-07-31T13:38:41","date_gmt":"2026-07-31T11:38:41","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/svetslik.si\/?post_type=product&p=129371"},"modified":"2026-07-31T13:38:50","modified_gmt":"2026-07-31T11:38:50","slug":"sveti-hieronim","status":"publish","type":"product","link":"https:\/\/svetslik.si\/en\/leonardo-da-vinci\/sveti-hieronim\/","title":{"rendered":"Leonardo da Vinci \u2013 Saint Jerome in the Wilderness"},"content":{"rendered":"

Saint Jerome in the Wilderness \u2013 the unfinished painting that was cut to pieces<\/h2>\n

Saint Jerome in the Wilderness is one of Leonardo\u2019s most affecting paintings and also one of the strangest: he never finished it, and the panel was later cut into pieces and only reunited by chance. Our hand-painted reproduction on canvas brings this brown-green, almost translucent image into your home, painted in oil on canvas.<\/p>\n

A painting that stopped at the drawing<\/h3>\n

Leonardo began the Saint Jerome between 1480 and 1490 and never completed it. The composition is laid onto the primed wooden panel in monochrome \u2013 an underpainting in which the bodies are already fully modelled while the colour is still absent. That is exactly what makes the work so valuable for understanding the master: we see the moment when the form is there and the surface is not yet. The original is painted in tempera and oil on a walnut panel, measures 103 \u00d7 75 cm, and is held in the Vatican Pinacoteca.<\/p>\n

What the painting shows<\/h3>\n

Jerome kneels in a rocky landscape, looking towards a crucifix. In his right hand he grips the stone with which, by tradition, he beat his breast in penance; his body is wasted, while his neck and shoulders are painted with an anatomical precision no one else of the time could match. At his feet lies the lion \u2013 the animal that, by legend, stayed loyal to him after he drew a thorn from its paw. Behind them opens a lake ringed by steep mountains that dissolve into the air.<\/p>\n

Cut apart, sold, and put back together<\/h3>\n

A picturesque legend circulates about how the painting was found: that the torso served as a table top and the head as a cobbler\u2019s wedge. It is a fine story, but it is not true. The documented account is less romantic and more brutal: the Roman dealer Pietro Camuccini cut the panel apart with straight incisions so that the better-finished head could be sold separately. In 1819 Cardinal Fesch bought the head. Later, in a Roman antiques shop, he came upon a panel in the same style with a hole exactly where the head should have been \u2013 and when he set the two pieces together, they matched precisely. In 1856 the work was acquired by Pope Pius IX.<\/p>\n

A hand-painted reproduction for your home<\/h3>\n

Every reproduction of Saint Jerome in the Wilderness is entirely hand-painted in oil on canvas \u2013 not a print, but a real painting created for you by an experienced artist. It is available in eight sizes, stretched on a wooden frame on request and in a frame from our 3D range. The restrained, earthy palette suits a study, a library, or a quiet corner of a living room.<\/p>\n