Saint Jerome in the Wilderness

Leonardo da Vinci's Saint Jerome in the Wilderness, painted around 1480 and now in the Pinacoteca Vaticana, is another of Leonardo's famous unfinished works. The kneeling saint, shown in an extreme state of penitential emaciation, is one of the most powerful anatomical studies in Renaissance art. The painting had a remarkable provenance—it was reportedly found cut in two pieces, with one section being used as a tabletop. Cardinal Fesch reunited the fragments in the early 19th century.

Leonardo's unfinished panel reveals his working process with the monochrome underpainting visible, showing his extraordinary anatomical precision in the emaciated torso and his innovative rocky landscape setting with atmospheric perspective.