Lot 940 | St. Peter as Penitent

SARACENI, CARLO
Venice ca. 1580 - 1620

Title: St. Peter as Penitent.
Date: Ca. 1618-1619.
Technique: Oil on copper.
Mounting: Laid down on wood.
Measurement: 23 x 18cm.
Frame/Pedestal: Framed.

Provenance:
Private ownership, Germany.

Carlo Saraceni's paintings on copper, together with the works of Adam Elsheimer, constitute the high points of Italian artistic culture in the first decades of the 17th century. The Venetian painter used the precious metal painting carrier on numerous occasions: for smaller versions of larger compositions or for autonomous paintings, sometimes repeated in several copies.
An emblematic case is Saint Peter as a penitent. A version by Carlo Saraceni is in Rome in the collection of Fabrizio Lemme (oil on copper, 24,2 x 18,5 cm), executed by the painter around 1618. The success of the composition is confirmed by at least two other replicas, also on copper, which refer to the artist's workshop (Christie's, New York, 03.11.1999, lot 205, 22,2 x 16,8 cm; Dorotheum, Vienna, 17.10.2017, lot 272, 23,3 x 18,1 cm).
The present painting, which has been in a German private collection for several decades, joins the small group of works on copper depicting the penitent Peter, becoming the fourth known version. The high quality of the execution suggests that the painting was executed by Carlo Saraceni himself in the years 1618-1620 and not by one of his pupils.

We are grateful to Maria Giulia Aurigemma, Rome, for her kind support with cataloguing the present painting.