artist easel
In that year also, no doubt, was painted the early and, as might be expected, unfinished “St. Jerome in the Desert,” now in the Vatican, the under-painting being in umber and _terraverte_. Its authenticity is vouched for not only by the internal evidence of the picture itself, but also by the similarity of treatment seen in a drawing in the Royal Library at Windsor. Cardinal Fesch, a princely collector in Rome in the early part of the nineteenth century, found part of the picture–the torso–being used as a box-cover in a shop in Rome. He long afterwards discovered in a shoemaker’s shop a panel of the head which belonged to the torso. The jointed panel was eventually purchased by Pope Pius IX., and added to the Vatican Collection.
He was given his own private residence and studio, in which he taught, and continued work on his studies, drawings, and sketches.