St. Jerome in the Wilderness
Artist	Leonardo da Vinci
Year	1480
Medium	Tempera and oil on walnut panel
Location	Vatican Museums, Rome
Dimensions	41 in × 30 in
	103 cm × 75 cm

St. Jerome in the Wilderness is a Leonardo da Vinci painting illustrating St. Jerome as he lives a hermit life in a Syrian desert. St. Jerome is depicted in one knee with his eyes beseeching towards a faint drawing of a crucifix shown on the right side of the painting. St. Jerome is holding a rock on his right hand. Another figure in the painting is a lion lying at St. Jerome’s feet which is known to become the saint’s loyal travel companion after he removed the thorn from the lion’s paw. At the background shows a rocky landscape and a sketch of a cave on the left side of the painting. Leonardo’s genius knowledge on human anatomy is impressively shown in his work with St. Jerome’s figure.

Dated c. 1480, St. Jerome in the Wilderness with tempera and oil as medium on 103 x 75 cm panel is one of da Vinci’s unfinished works. At this time in his life, Leonardo da Vinci was feeling low according to the entries in his diary. The gaunt face of St. Jerome expresses a tumult of emotions and shows the difficulty of the life the saint is leading, being related to what da Vinci was currently experiencing at that point in time.

At some time in the past, the painting panel was cut into two and separated. The pieces were found by Cardinal Fesch, a painting collector in the early 19th century, and he had the panel reassembled. The repaired painting was sold to Pope Pius IX and given to the care of the Vatican where the painting is still located today.

Although many paintings had been debated by historians and art experts whether they are paintings of Leonardo da Vinci, the painting of St. Jerome in the Wilderness is one of the few credited as da Vinci’s work without any question. Similarities of the painting style with Leonardo da Vinci’s Adoration of the Magi and the obvious painting technique makes the work unmistakably da Vinci’s.