St. Jerome, translator of the Bible, cardinal and hermit, is one of the four Fathers of the Church. He is often depicted in art as a hermit in the wilderness. His lion is generally at his side, the lion that accompanied him, according to legend, since the time he extracted a thorn from its paw. It seems out of the ordinary that Jerome, who was mainly popular with Catholics in the 17th century, was depicted by Rembrandt so often in his etchings. Here, Jerome is depicted in a dark interior, seated behind a table. He is writing in a book. The lion under the table and the cardinal's hat on the wall can barely be made out. The saint's room, with its spiral staircase, is very similar to that in a Rembrandt painting of a scholar in his study dating 1633 which now hangs in the Louvre.