Max-Daniel - Saint Jérome et le lion

Saint Jerome and the Lion
Max-Daniel, 2026
Numbered edition 1/2
Oil on stretched canvas on frame and framed
Artwork format: 30 × 40 cm
Framing: dark-stained wooden American frame
Overall dimensions: 34 × 44 cm
Work ready to hang on the wall, semi-gloss protective varnish

With Saint Jerome and the Lion, Max-Daniel offers a sensitive, intimate re-reading of a famous episode in Christian iconography. Saint Jerome, Father of the Church, translator of the Bible into Latin and a major figure of scholarly meditation, is traditionally depicted in the desert, in his cell, or accompanied by a tamed lion. Legend says he pulled a thorn from the animal’s paw, turning fear into trust, threat into fidelity.

Here, Max-Daniel chooses not to treat the scene as a simple edifying or heroic image. The center of the painting is not the saint’s feat, but the relationship that develops between two beings. The old man and the lion look at each other with an almost human intensity. Jerome’s hand holds the animal’s paw, not as an act of domination, but as an act of care, listening, and mutual recognition.

The composition emphasizes this closeness. The scarred face of Saint Jerome, his aging body, the dark red robe, the light coming from the cave entrance, all contribute to making the scene a suspended moment. The lion is not treated as a conquered wild beast, but as a majestic yet vulnerable presence at once. Its gaze lifted toward the saint expresses less submission than trust.

The cave-library setting reinforces the symbolic dimension of the work. Books, scrolls, the lamp, the cross and scholarly objects recall the world of thought, translation, and faith. Yet in the face of this accumulation of knowledge, it is ultimately the simple act of compassion that becomes the painting’s true subject. Knowledge is not separate from empathy: it finds its fulfillment in attention given to the living.

This original representation of Saint Jerome and the lion thus emphasizes a deeply relevant idea: spiritual greatness lies not only in asceticism, study, or doctrine, but in the ability to recognize another’s suffering, even when it appears in the form of an animal, a stranger, or the wild.

A hybrid work by Max-Daniel, this piece belongs to a limited edition of two numbered copies. The presented copy is number 1/2, signed and authenticated on the back, framed in a dark-stained American frame, ready to hang.