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Fra Filippo Lippi and workshop, 'Saint Jerome and the Lion: Predella Panel', 1455-60

Key facts
Full title Saint Jerome and the Lion: Predella Panel
Artist Fra Filippo Lippi and workshop
Artist dates born about 1406; died 1469
Group The Pistoia Santa Trinità Altarpiece
Date made 1455-60
Medium and support egg tempera on wood
Dimensions 26.5 × 40 cm
Acquisition credit Presented by Mr and Mrs Felix M. Warburg through the Art Fund, 1937
Inventory number NG4868.4
Location Not on display
Collection Main Collection
Saint Jerome and the Lion: Predella Panel
Fra Filippo Lippi and workshop
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Saint Jerome sits in the wilderness, carefully removing a thorn from the paw of a very endearing lion – it went on to be his companion. This was a popular subject in medieval art, although Jerome is usually just shown with the lion as a pet, rather than actually treating it.

This is one of five scenes from the predella, the bottom tier, of the Pistoia Santa Trinità Altarpiece, which was painted for a confraternity of priests in Pistoia. It was begun by Pesellino and finished after his death in 1457 by Fra Filippo Lippi. The predella is usually attributed to Lippi and his workshop, though we don't know how much was actually done by Lippi himself. He probably did this scene, though: it’s of a notably higher quality.

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The Pistoia Santa Trinità Altarpiece

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This large altarpiece – one of the few in the National Gallery which is almost complete – has had an eventful life. It was commissioned in 1455 from the Florentine painter Francesco Pesellino, and is his only surviving documented work. He died in 1457 and it was finished by Fra Filippo Lippi and his workshop. We know a lot about how and why it was made from the records of the confraternity who commissioned it.

From 1465 it sat on the high altar of the church of the Holy Trinity at Pistoia, but in 1793 the confraternity was suppressed and the altarpiece was taken apart, with the main panel sawn into pieces, and dispersed. Most of it was gradually acquired by the National Gallery and the altarpiece reassembled.

This is the earliest pala (an altarpiece with a single main panel) in the National Gallery.