(Naples 1634–1705)
Saint Peter,
oil on canvas, 76 x 62.5 cm, framed

Provenance:
sale, Ader-Tajan, Paris, 20 December 1994, lot 16 (as Luca Giordano);
Aristocratic collection, until 2003;
Private European collection

Exhibited:
Naples, Castel Sant’Elmo/Vienna, Kunsthistorisches Museum, Luca Giordano 1634-1705, 3 March – 3 June 2001 / 23 June – 7 October 2001, cat. no. 53a (as Luca Giordano)

Literature:
V. Pacelli, Inediti di Luca Giordano, in: Napoli, l’Europa. Ricerche di storia dell’arte in onore di Ferdinando Bologna, ed. by F. Abbate/F. Sricchia Santoro, Catanzaro 1995, p. 243, fig. 195 (as Luca Giordano);
D. M. Pagano, in: Luca Giordano 1634-1705, exhibition catalogue, ed. by W. Seipel, Naples/Vienna 2001, pp. 186-187, cat. no. 53a (as Luca Giordano);
O. Ferrari/G. Scavizzi, Luca Giordano: nuove ricerche e inediti, Naples 2003, cat. no. A016A (as Luca Giordano)

Luca Giordano depicts the Apostle Peter, half-length and at prayer with his assigned attributes in the foreground: the book and the keys of Heaven. Oreste Ferrari (see literature) suggests a date of around 1655. The touches of red Giordano deploys in the description of the saint’s features are distinctive, and provide a record of the artist’s predilection for densely applied pigment at this point in his career.

The broad chromatic expanse of the mantle, the effort to render the impasto of the subject’s deeply furrowed brow and the particular attention to realistic details, such as the dirty fingernails of the saint, signal the great influence Jusepe de Ribera had on Giordano. This painting however, encapsulates Luca Giordano’s technical virtuosity, visible in the hands and the draperies and, while it is possible to recognise the sensory and material structure of Ribera’s influence, an additional mysticism can be found in this work, emanating from a new vibrancy visible in the expression of the saint.

This work’s closest model is probably Jusepe de Ribera’s etching of the Penitent Saint Peter dated 1621 (an example in the National Gallery of Art, Washington D.C., inv. no 1982.1.1). This etching evidently enjoyed considerable success leading to many derivations of the composition, including Luca Giordano’s Saint Jerome in the Gemäldegalerie, Dresden (see fig. 1).