St. Peter Recognized by a Servant Girl
1611–74
Medium
Brush and gray ink, gray wash, heightened with white, on blue paper.
Dimensions
8 1/4 x 6 3/16 in. (20.9 x 15.7 cm)
Classification
Drawings
Department
Drawings and Prints
Museum
Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York, NY
Credit
Gift of Alice F. Steiner, 1983
Accession Number
1983.71
Tags
Art Historical Context
In the dimly lit drawing *St. Peter Recognized by a Servant Girl*, Dutch artist Leonaert Bramer captures a pivotal moment from the New Testament (Matthew 26:69–75). As Jesus faces trial, the apostle Peter warms himself by a fire when a servant girl identifies him as a follower of Christ. Peter denies it, fulfilling Jesus' prophecy of three denials before the rooster crows. Bramer, a 17th-century Baroque master known for intimate nocturnal scenes influenced by Caravaggio's dramatic chiaroscuro, renders this episode of human frailty with emotional tension—Peter's anxious glance contrasting the g...