Saint Jerome seated in profile to the right

Related to a series of pictures depicting variations on the Virgin appearing to Saint Jerome, of which eleven different versions are in Brescia, Budapest, Cres, London, Milan, Munich, Padua, Paris, Trieste and Venice (M. Magrini, Francesco Fontebasso, Vicenza, 1988, nos. 18, 28, 39, 75-6, 92, 99, 118, 123, 160 and 167, figs. 32-8). The Venice picture, the largest of all, was commissioned for the New Sacristy of the Scuola di S. Girolamo in Venice, today the Ateneo Veneto. The ten other pictures, of the size of bozzetti, were probably painted in 1740-50 for the rooms of the monks.
The Scuola di San Girolamo was protected both by the eponymous saint and by the Virgin, which explains the incongruous iconography of the pictures.