Saint Jerome in his study

Wearing his customary anachronistic cardinal's garb, Saint Jerome sits at a table in his study, his left hand resting on his most recognizable attribute, the skull. The bookstand holds a tome open to a page showing the Last Judgment, which alludes to his meditations on the end of earthly existence and the vanity of life, as illustrated by the skull and the cross. Other items in the study also function as symbols of mortality, such as the candle on the shelf. Behind him sits the lion, in reference to the popular hagiographical belief that Jerome had tamed a lion in the wilderness by healing its paw.
Beginning in the fifteenth century, Saint Jerome became the patron saint of literati, and depictions of him as a penitent in the desert were joined by others of him in his studio, showing his work as an intellectual, surrounded by writing material and books. The saint is here shown aged and excessively thin. His forced gestures and the exaggerated shapes of his hands are characteristic of Marinus van Reymerswaele's depictions of the saint.