ARTIST FROM THE MARCHES FROM THE 17TH CENTURY
Reptance of Saint Peter
oil on canvas, cm 98×71,5
These two paintings depict subjects that are common in devotional themes. On one of the two canvases Saint Jerome, doctor of the Church and the first to translate the bible from Greek and Hebrew into Latin, is represented in his characteristic red robes, suggestive of a cardinal’s cassock. The saint has interrupted his writing at the sound of an unseen angelic trumpet call announcing the Last Judgment.
In the other painting Saint Peter is depicted. He is identified by the usual iconographic attributes, the keys resting in front of him, and he cries in despair at having denied Christ. The crowing rooster off to the right alludes to this betrayal, a betrayal his Master predicted (“Before the rooster crows, you will deny me three times”).
The original frames, unequivocally made in the Marches, allow us to narrow down the location where the canvases were painted to the Marches; they can be dated to the mid 1600s.