Saint Jerome in Penitence

c. 1496–97 · Print · 30.96 × 22.38 cm

Can I see it?

Not on view at present

Where is “Saint Jerome in Penitence” now? Collection: Minneapolis Institute of Art, Minneapolis. Not on view at present. Checked September 29, 2026.

Minneapolis Institute of Art

Minneapolis, United States

It belongs to the collection, but is not on display at present.

Checked: 13 days ago
In this state since: Sep 25, 2026
Source: The museum

On the map Museum page

About the work

As a desert hermit, Jerome learned Hebrew from a monk (a convert from Judaism) to distract him from his sexual appetites. When that didn't work, he turned to self-torture, which is why he often holds a rock. Said his friend Saint Augustine, Three times every day he beat his flesh so hard that rivers of blood flowed from his body. In this early print, Albrecht Dürer used Jerome's exile as an opportunity to render the fantastic art of nature that he found in the Alpine landscape.

Minneapolis Institute of Art

Details

Accession number: P.86.40

In the catalog

Prints Engraving Renaissance 15th century Germany

Sources

Minneapolis Institute of Art
Image: Minneapolis Institute of Art — public domain

In the life of Albrecht Dürer

The whole life

c. 1492 – 1494
Basel: woodcuts for the printers
In Basel, a centre of printing, Dürer stayed with Georg Schongauer. A woodblock for the title page of the Letters of St Jerome (1492), signed with his name on the back, led to the works of the “Master of the Bergmann Press” being attributed to him; he may also have worked on the woodcuts for Sebastian Brant's Ship of Fools.
July 1494
Marries Agnes Frey
Soon after returning to Nuremberg the 23-year-old Dürer married Agnes Frey, daughter of a prominent brass worker and amateur harpist; the match had been arranged in his absence, and marriage was required to open a workshop of his own. They had no children, and his letters suggest the marriage was not a happy one.
7 July 1494
Married: Agnes Dürer
1494–1495
First journey to Italy
Within three months of the wedding Dürer left alone for Italy, perhaps fleeing an outbreak of plague in Nuremberg. Crossing the Alps he made watercolour landscapes; in Venice he studied its art and judged Giovanni Bellini the best of its painters; Mantegna and Pollaiuolo left their mark on him.
1495
Opens his own workshop
Dürer opened his own workshop in Nuremberg, where over the next ten years he created much of his printmaking. His godfather, the publisher Anton Koberger, helped issue the first series; the city's crafts were governed by the Council rather than guilds, leaving him free to try new techniques and sell his own impressions.