, Antonello painted a cat (which has nearly faded away), a pot of carnations or pinks, and another potted plant (resembling a small tree) that may be basil. He also included "the characteristic Netherlandish motif of the towel hanging on a nail," two small oil lamps, a cardinal's red hat (which rests on a low wooden chest) and a lion, who approaches from the row of arches on the right (Hartt 365). Jerome wears the red robes of a cardinal and is surrounded by shelves filled with books, some of which are propped up with their pages open, and small blue and white ceramic containers.
Some of the most astonishing detail in the painting is seen through the windows at the rear of the pictorial space. There is a landscape with low mountains visible through the right-hand windows. But on the left the window discloses a precisely painted scene with a continuation of the same landscape, several structures, open fields, a flock of sheep, a river toward the foreground, and a number of human figures whose gender and activities are quite clear.
The date of the painting was estimated at c. 1450-55 by Hartt. This traditional date was based in part on the evidence of Sicilian architectural details but also on the fact that it is one of the most clearly Netherlandish in style of all Antonello's extant works. Indeed a 1529 observer suspected that while the painting was attributed to Antonello it "might have been painted by Hans Memling or even Van Eyck himself" (Hartt 365). The claim for the date of 1450 was that the architecture shows that it was probably painted in Sicily while the very Flemish appearance of the picture shows that it was an early work. But another work, his Crucifixion (1475), also in London's National Gallery, is "equally Flemish" in appearance and its date is quite certainly 1475 since it is inscribed on a sort of placard that is part of the painting (Humfrey 72). Humfrey suggests that a close comparison of the landsca...