Portrait of Cardinal Albrecht of Brandenburg as Hieronymus in the case

The painting shows Cardinal Albrecht as Saint Jerome seated at his desk in a rather contemporary study. A chandelier, called a Lusterweibchen, hangs from the ceiling. It is similar to the one hanging over the picture in our gallery. The painting has an elaborate symbolic program which would have been read and understood by educated people of the day. In the foreground are a lion, Jerome's companion in the desert; a beaver symbolic of industriousness, a squirrel indicating frugality, a parrot to signal the Annunciation, in addition to pheasants, a peacock, an apple and a deer - all symbolic of characteristics Albrecht wanted associated with himself.