Giovanni Mansueti
St. Jerome Appearing to St. Augustine

Mouse:

Well, the old gallery cat can spend all day looking for me here. Nobody is going to find me in this picture!

But … yikes!.. right there at the front, on the edge – it's here! Oh no, sorry. That's just the cheetah from the picture. It seems to be looking for me too. But... it has no idea where I am!

Here maybe? In the cupboard between the books?

Or here? Near the writing desk?

Or back here? On the stairs?

Or between the pillars perhaps?

Or near the little donkey?

Yes, there's an awful lot going on in this picture! People and animals and even a saint and a few angels are milling about in here. And the study on the left – ooooh! – it is rather ... well ... messy. Books and notebooks scattered all over the place. If your room looked like that, you'd probably end up in a lot of trouble. And the two men working in the study – well, I honestly wonder how they find their way around that mess. Besides, 500 years ago, when this picture was painted, books were real treasures. You couldn't just walk into a bookshop and buy a book. Each book had to be painstakingly copied by hand. That's why the two gentlemen should really be a bit more careful with their treasures. And possibly chase that partridge out of the study. Otherwise it's likely to leave... erm... its deposits all over the place.

But for me – well, for me, a mess like this is very entertaining!

I can sneak in between all those books that are lying around and have a look at them all...

Cat:

Meow?

Mouse:

And I can lead the old gallery cat by the nose! It gets all sniffy because it thinks the Staatsgalerie is its home. But here... in the pictures... – this is my world!