Jusepe de Ribera (Spanish, 1588–1652)
Penitent Saint Peter
INV-1201
Jusepe de Ribera (Spanish, 1588–1652)c. 1630
Penitent Saint Peter
Jusepe de Ribera (Spanish, 1588–1652) →17th CenturyBaroqueoil on canvasspanish
Date
c. 1630
Medium
Oil on canvas
Dimensions
126.5 × 97 cm (49 3/4 × 38 1/4 in.); Framed: 150.2 × 121.3 × 7 cm (59 1/8 × 47 3/4 × 2 3/4 in.)
Museum
Art Institute of Chicago
Location
Chicago, IL
Credit
Mrs. Goldabelle Macomb Finn Fund, with additional support from friends of the European Painting Department, Mrs. James W. Alsdorf, Mrs. Edward McCormick Blair, Mr. and Mrs. Gerald Gidwitz, Josephine and John J. Louis, Jr., the Otto L. and Hazel T. Rhoades Fund and Mrs. George B. Young; L.L. A.S. Coburn Endowment
Emerging from darkness into a blaze of light falling from heaven, Saint Peter’s enraptured upward expression and gesture here suggest a moment of spiritual dialogue as he grapples with his bitter remorse for having denied that he is a follower of Christ.
Jusepe de Ribera was born near Valencia, Spain, but worked in Italy, in Rome from about 1612 until 1613, when the influence of the painter Caravaggio was at its height, then in Naples from 1616. In Naples, which was then under Spanish rule, he enjoyed the patronage of successive Spanish viceroys, producing altarpieces and paintings of classical subjects and expressive single figures like the one seen here, so lifelike in their conception that they appear to be portraits of their historical or religious subjects.
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