(Bologna 1575–1642)
The repentant Saint Peter
oil on copper, 63.5 x 50.5 cm, framed

saleroom notice:
We are grateful to Lorenzo Pericolo for suggesting that the present work is a fully autograph work by Guido Reni after examination of the painting in the original.

Provenance:
Sale Christie’s, Ca‘n Puig Y Castillo de Bendinat, Mallorca, 24th–25th May 1999, lot 679 (as Circle of Guido Reni)

Literature:
S. Pepper, Guido Reni’s Practice of Repeating Compositions, in: Artibus et Historiae, no. 39 (XX), 1999, pp. 38, 41, fig. 17, ill. (as Guido Reni)

Stephen Pepper believed the present painting to be a fully autograph work by Guido Reni. During his long career, Guido Reni made painting the repentant Saint Peter his speciality. In his treatment of this subject he repeated identical or similar compositions several times, however the present work appears to be unique in that it is the only representation of this subject painted on copper. Reni´s works on copper are relatively rare and he used the metal surface to achieve a particular quality of precision in the drawing and brilliance in the texture that the hard surface permitted. Pepper suggested that in the present work it is possible to observe this refinement in the way the features of the face and the details of the beard have been rendered. At the same time the highlight on the forehead has been created through the use of thick impasto, an effect usually used in paintings on canvas.

Pepper dated the present work to the period of Reni’s second manner of painting to around 1638, relatively late in his career. At the end of the 1620s Reni changed his style fundamentally, and from around 1629 onwards, he painted in a very light manner. Instead of modelling in chiaroscuro he eliminated all dark shadows and modelled his figures by passing from areas of transparent shadow to those of light. In the present painting Pepper argued that this technique is apparent in the shadow formed under Peter’s beard, which is completely transparent, allowing us to see the modelling underneath. Denis Mahon concurred with Stephen Pepper and suggested a date in the late 1620s.