Saint Jerome in his Study

This celebrated composition was invented by Albrecht Dürer in 1521, during his visit to the Low Countries, for the Portuguese patron Rodrigo d'Almada. The composition was subsequently adopted in a drawing by Lucas van Leyden (Oxford, Ashmolean Museum) and in a number of painted versions by Joos van Cleve, who may have admired Dürer's original while it was in Antwerp (see M. J. Friedländer, Early Netherlandish Painting, IXa: Joos van Cleve, Jan Provost, Joachim Patinir, Leiden, 1972, pp. 31 and 58, pl. 57).