After Cornelis Cort - Saint Jerome - boxwood, Flanders, end 16th/early 17th

This small relief in carved boxwood very delicately, is inspired by an engraving by the artist Cornelis Cort also known as Cornelio Fiammingo (c. 1533-March 17, 1578), Dutch painter, draftsman and engraver who passed the twelve last years of his life in Italy, especially in Rome where he opened a school where many students are trained.
Born in the north of Holland, Cornelis Cort was a pupil of Dirck Volkertszoon Coornhert during the 1550s in Haarlem his first engravings were printed in 1553 in Antwerp under the direction of Jérôme Cock who was also one of Cort's masters. In 1565, Cornelis Cort moved to Venice in Titian's studio, then after a brief return to the Netherlands, he returned to Italy, first to Bologna
then to Rome where he produced a large number of engravings.
Between 1569 and 1571, he seems to be in Florence in the service of the Medici and then returns to Rome where he ends his days. His engravings after the great painters of his time help to publicize the works of Raphael, Titian, Polidoro da Caravaggio, Barocci, Giulio Clovio and Zuccari.
Borrowed from Italianisms, our relief of Saint Jerome penitent in a cave corresponds by its size and its material to small objects of curiosity or private devotion ordered by enlightened amateurs.
It is worth noting another engraved version of this iconography treated by Cornelis Cort in 1573 today at the Metropolitan Museum in New York (Inv. N ° 53.600.2534).

Latin inscription : PERCVTIT IMPERITV REPETITO VERBERE PECTUSVT IHS MOLLEM POSSITHABERETORVM