Look closer: three details in this image
- The soldier A pointing finger emerges from the dark armour at left.
- The woman Her raised fingers contribute to the Met’s reading of three accusations.
- Peter His illuminated hands draw towards his chest as he answers.
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by Tom Gurney
Tom Gurney BSc (Hons) is an art history expert with over 20 years experience
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Email: tomgurney1@gmail.com / Phone: +44 7429 011000
The Denial of Saint Peter by Caravaggio
Three people stand close together in near darkness. A soldier and a woman accuse Peter of knowing Jesus; Peter gestures towards himself while turning away. Caravaggio's Denial of Saint Peter compresses a sequence of three denials into one encounter. The figures' hands count and contest what words alone would otherwise have to explain.[1]
The Metropolitan Museum of Art dates the painting to 1610, in the last months of Caravaggio's life, and places it among his late Naples works. Its composition is strikingly economical: little setting, three bodies, a few illuminated faces and fingers, and darkness dense enough to make their exchange feel private even though the accusation has dangerous public consequences.[1]
Caravaggio in context
The Cardsharps
c.1595Calling of Saint Matthew
1599–1600Supper at Emmaus
1601At a Glance
- ArtistMichelangelo Merisi, called Caravaggio (1571–1610)
- TitleThe Denial of Saint Peter
- Date1610[1]
- Mediumoil on canvas[1]
- Dimensions94 × 125.4 cm[1]
- CollectionThe Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York, object 1997.167[1]
- SubjectPeter denies association with Jesus after the arrest, in a scene combining accusations from the Gospel narratives[1][2]
- First known document3 May 1613 settlement transferring the painting to Guido Reni's representative[5]
- Later collectionidentified with an entry in the Savelli family's Ariccia inventories by 1624; the inventory match is a scholarly reconstruction[5][6]
Contents
- What Is Happening?
- The Soldier, Woman and Peter
- Three Denials in One Scene
- Hands, Faces and the Limits of Light
- The Gospel Story and Caravaggio's Choice
- A Late Painting, Not a Diary Entry
- The 1613 Debt Settlement
- From the Savelli Collection to the Met
- Modern Rediscovery and the Export Question
- How the Design Travelled
- Frequently Asked Questions
Look closer: The Denial of Saint Peter
Caravaggio concentrates the accusation in a tight triangle of faces and hands. The details let each participant's gesture be read separately.
123Details from The Denial of Saint Peter
Select a detail image to open the full-size gallery, then use the arrows to compare views.
Peter's answering hands
Peter draws his hands to his chest as though refusing the charge. The hands sit in one of the painting's few brightly lit areas.
The woman's pointing fingers
The woman's hand turns toward Peter from the centre of the canvas, carrying the accusation across the dark space.
The soldier's helmet
The soldier's face is largely shaded, while light traces the curled metal helmet and his red sleeve.
What Is Happening?
Peter stands at the right, recognisable in the museum's title and account. He faces a woman and a soldier. The woman turns towards him; the soldier's helmet and pointing hand occupy the left side. Peter seems to answer while drawing his hands inward. None of the three moves away. Their closeness makes the question—was he with Jesus?—feel difficult to evade.[1]
The Met places the scene before a fireplace. The warmth of that setting is barely developed as a room. Dark ground surrounds the figures, and light catches only enough to make their faces and hands readable. Caravaggio gives the viewer no distracting crowd, courtyard architecture or distant view of Christ. The whole narrative weight falls on a small exchange.[1]
The painting's modest dimensions, under a metre high, reinforce that intimacy. It is not a chapel-sized public narrative. Its effect depends on a viewer near enough to read the fingers, the soldier's helmet and Peter's expression. The difference between a word spoken and a gesture made is at the centre of the work.
The Soldier, Woman and Peter
The soldier at the left is mostly obscured by dark armour and a helmet. His pointing finger still directs attention towards Peter. The woman stands between them, partly shadowed, looking across the narrow space. Peter's face and hands receive enough light for his response to be visible.[1]
These people are not arranged as three portraits in equal light. The soldier's authority is suggested by armour and a gesture; the woman's accusation by her directed attention and hands; Peter's vulnerability by his visible reaction. The darkness leaves each partly inaccessible. A viewer has to infer their relation from what the light reveals.
Peter's hands are especially complex. They can be read as saying “Who, me?” or pushing the charge away, even while their movement towards his own chest betrays his involvement. The painting does not give us a speech bubble. It uses a momentary gesture that can hold denial, fear and self-recognition together.
Three Denials in One Scene
The Gospel accounts describe Peter's repeated denials after Jesus is arrested. Rather than painting three separate episodes, Caravaggio brings their force into one group. The Met reads the soldier's one pointing finger and the woman's two extended fingers as an allusion to three accusations and three denials. This is a museum interpretation of a visible detail, not a literal record that the two people made all three historical accusations at one instant.[1][2]
That compression changes how the story is experienced. The spectator can know the whole sequence while watching a single answer take shape. The fingers make repetition visible without a series of panels or a crowded cast. Peter is pressed by a moment that seems to contain both what he has said and what he is about to say.
Counting gestures also makes the viewer active. Once the fingers are noticed, the space between the three figures becomes a place where accusation travels. The pointing does not physically touch Peter, but it makes retreat difficult. The composition makes social pressure almost as tangible as the soldier's armour.
The gestures are not interchangeable marks on a tally. Michele Nicolaci and Riccardo Gandolfi distinguish the soldier's raised, gloved finger, which can look like a question, from the woman's repeated signs. Peter's two hands turn back towards himself, making his response more troubled than a simple refusal.[5] Met curator Keith Christiansen connects a hand brought towards the breast with an older tradition of gestures for contrition and shame. He cites John Bulwer's 1644 treatise as a later written parallel, not as evidence that Caravaggio consulted it before painting in 1610.[7] The gesture can therefore register denial and dawning remorse without requiring an invented line of dialogue.
Hands, Faces and the Limits of Light
Caravaggio's lighting in this late work is selective. Faces, Peter's hands, the woman's head covering and parts of the soldier's armour emerge from a nearly black setting. The Met describes late Naples pictures as depending on bright areas against dark backgrounds. Here that effect is not merely a dramatic style: it determines what evidence the viewer gets about the exchange.[1]
The soldier's face is mostly concealed, so his finger speaks for him. The woman's face is visible but partly in shadow. Peter is illuminated enough to show his troubled response, yet he too recedes into darkness. The painting does not make innocence and guilt identical with brightness and shade. Light reveals the actions needed to understand the story while leaving the characters' inner states open to interpretation.
The three bodies fill a shallow horizontal space. The spectator is close to their circle but not invited into it. We witness a private failure with public consequences. That closeness gives the work its emotional concentration, especially when compared with the sprawling narrative of The Seven Works of Mercy or the large Maltese Beheading of Saint John the Baptist.
The Gospel Story and Caravaggio's Choice
The denials are part of the Passion narrative in all four Gospels, though the wording and sequence differ. Peter, who had followed Jesus, disowns him under questioning; a cockcrow marks the recognition of what he has done. Caravaggio chooses the accusation rather than the later moment of tears or repentance. The painting stays inside the pressure of the exchange.[2]
This focus gives the woman and soldier a large role. They are not background witnesses placed to identify Peter; their questions drive the action. The Gospel's moral and spiritual consequences are present for a viewer who knows the story, but the canvas does not leap to a final lesson. It asks what denial looks like while it is being made.
The result is neither a literal transcript of one evangelist nor a generic image of guilt. It is a painted synthesis. The Met's reading of the fingers is one way to see how Caravaggio could make a repeated event fit a single dramatic instant.[1]
The instant itself has been read differently. Creighton Gilbert, as quoted by Nicholas Hall, located it after Peter's spoken denials: the woman is passing news of his answer to the soldier, and Peter has not yet broken into tears. The Met's account emphasizes the accusation still directed at him.[1][10] Both readings respond to the painting's deliberate lack of a fixed speech or narrated sequence. The fingers suggest three denials, but they cannot establish precisely which words have just been spoken or which will follow.
A Late Painting, Not a Diary Entry
The Met dates this work to the final months of Caravaggio's life. It also describes it as an extreme stage in his late use of dark backgrounds and brightly lit areas. These are claims about the object's date and visual method. They do not show that Peter's fear is a coded account of Caravaggio's own last months.[1]
The date is supported in part by comparison with The Martyrdom of Saint Ursula, which was documented in Naples in the spring of 1610. The Met brought the two paintings together in a 2017 exhibition and stressed their compressed compositions and psychological intensity.[8] That comparison gives the Denial a plausible place in the final Naples period; it does not supply a dated commission or receipt for this particular canvas. The same exhibition acknowledged that some scholars connect the darkness and anxiety of the two works with the painter's biography. Such a connection remains an interpretation rather than the basis for identifying the objects or their owners.[8]
Late works invite biographical readings because the artist's life was eventful and brief. The safer route is to begin with the commission, object and painted choices. Here the figures, fingers, shallow space and restricted light explain much of the painting's effect without inventing a private confession.
Compare the early Musicians, where several figures fill a clearer field and their relationship concerns anticipated music. The change in lighting and narrative pace is visible, but no single cause explains all the differences between works made more than a decade apart for different purposes.[1][3]
The 1613 Debt Settlement
The first known documentary mention is unusually specific. Nicolaci and Gandolfi published a Roman notarial settlement dated 3 May 1613: engraver Luca Ciamberlano owed Guido Reni 350 scudi and transferred a painting described as made by the late Caravaggio and showing Saint Peter denying Christ with a maid. The parties valued the picture at 240 scudi against the debt, leaving 110 scudi to pay. Painter Alessandro Albini received it as Reni's representative.[5] The transaction confirms that a Caravaggio Denial circulated in Rome within three years of the artist's death. The Met identifies that documented picture with its canvas.[1][5]
The engraver was not a chance intermediary. The same study documents Ciamberlano's work as Reni's agent in Roman financial affairs and their artistic collaboration on prints after Reni's designs. By 1613 Albini had taken his place as Reni's representative for this settlement. A further document records the final 45-scudi payment on 20 September 1620, closing the original 350-scudi debt after instalments. The painting therefore accounted for 240 scudi of a longer financial transaction; the 1613 document was not evidence of an outright cash sale at that figure.[5]
This was a settlement between later owners, not a commission from Reni to Caravaggio. The surviving receipt says nothing about who originally ordered the work, how Ciamberlano obtained it, or where it hung before 1613. The monetary figure records the value accepted in one debt agreement; it should not be turned into a universal market price for Caravaggio.[5]
From the Savelli Collection to the Met
The next part of the trail depends on matching inventory descriptions. Nicolaci and Gandolfi report Laura Testa's identification of a Saint Peter with the maid in the Savelli family's Ariccia inventories of 1624 and 1631, and a more explicit 1650 Savelli entry attributed to Caravaggio. The earlier entries did not name the painter, so the 1624 connection is persuasive provenance research rather than the same kind of object-specific transaction as the 1613 receipt.[5] Keith Christiansen's Met catalogue also places the picture in a 1624 Savelli inventory but leaves open how Cardinal Paolo Savelli acquired it.[6]
The study notes that no corresponding Denial appears in the Ariccia inventory of 1611. If the later entries refer to this canvas, the Savelli acquisition falls after that inventory and no later than 1624. Nicolaci and Gandolfi suggest a route from Reni to the family because Paolo and Federico Savelli collected his work and commissioned pictures from him. Those relationships make a direct transfer possible, but neither the absent 1611 listing nor the later inventories supply a bill of sale from Reni. The reported 1650 valuation is likewise an inventory estimate in a later collection, not the price paid by the Savelli.[5][6]
The Met catalogue loses the painting's trail after 1650. It reports its reappearance on the Neapolitan art market after the Second World War, when it was assigned to Caravaggio's follower Bartolomeo Manfredi. Documents published in 1980 established that the stylistically related Martyrdom of Saint Ursula was painted by Caravaggio in spring 1610; that evidence sharpened the case for the Denial as a late Caravaggio, but it does not document this canvas's original commission.[6] The gap between the Savelli records and the modern picture should remain visible, even as the Met accepts the attribution and dates the work to 1610.[1][6]
The painting entered the Met's collection in 1997 through a gift and purchase. Its object number is 1997.167. The museum marks its image Public Domain and provides an Open Access download, which is why the site's image master can be tied to the owner rather than an unverified reproduction.[1]
Modern Rediscovery and the Export Question
Nicholas Hall's account, drawing on the Met's provenance history, published catalogues and dealer correspondence, supplies a more detailed modern trail. Prince Vincenzo Imparato Caracciolo bought the picture on the Neapolitan market in 1952; it passed to his daughter Elena. It was then being treated as a work by Bartolomeo Manfredi, illustrating how a historical attribution could govern an object's movement before wider acceptance as Caravaggio. Hall dates its departure for a Lausanne bank to 1966 and reports that restorer Jan Dik and dealer Julius Weitzner acquired it there in 1970.[10] These dates narrow the postwar story but do not bridge the missing centuries after the Savelli inventories.
Hall reproduces the substance of Weitzner's 1972 letters to collector Bob Jones Jr. The dealer described negotiations with the Italian authorities over the picture and an exchange involving a Guardi painting, which he believed cleared its resale. The letters are evidence for what Weitzner said about his negotiations; Hall does not reproduce the underlying export licence or settlement decision.[10] The status of the export has therefore been disputed. In an October 2020 Italian Senate question, Senator Margherita Corrado and four colleagues alleged that the painting had left Italy without authorisation and asked the culture minister about seeking its return.[11] A parliamentary question records an allegation and a request for action, not a judicial finding. Hall also reports Keith Christiansen's recollection that Shickman showed him a document said to resolve the issue before the 1997 acquisition.[10] Without the original administrative records, these accounts cannot be collapsed into a definite legal conclusion.
The later public appearances are firmer markers of the picture's reception. Hall records its display in the 1982–83 Naples-painting exhibition in London and Washington and in the Met's 1985 Age of Caravaggio exhibition, while it was still privately owned. Herman Shickman had agreed to buy it in 1976, according to Hall's account based in part on correspondence with his assistant. The museum's 1997 credit line explicitly combines a gift from Herman and Lila Shickman with a purchase supported by the Lila Acheson Wallace Gift.[1][10] That credit line should be read as the museum's stated acquisition structure; it does not itself disclose the full private purchase agreement.
For a broader path, see the paintings directory and artist guide. The biography treats the final journey through documents rather than read it directly out of Peter's face.
How the Design Travelled
An early owner helps explain how a late Caravaggio invention could reach other painters. A Metropolitan Museum catalogue on Valentin de Boulogne argues that Jusepe de Ribera's Denial of Saint Peter, made around 1615, drew on this picture while Reni owned it. The comparison concerns the accusing woman turning towards another figure and Peter's answering gesture. It is an account of artistic transmission, not evidence that Ribera copied every detail or that Caravaggio directed him.[4]
Nicolaci and Gandolfi trace more immediate variations: Giovanni Antonio Galli, called Spadarino, kept a small, close confrontation; Giuseppe Vermiglio and Lionello Spada developed their own versions of Peter's answering gesture. The authors place these responses around the middle of the 1610s, while leaving the exact access of individual artists to Reni's canvas open.[5] Ribera's broader arrangement, and the later multi-figure scenes discussed in the Met's Valentin catalogue, show how a three-person accusation could become a larger social drama. What remained portable was the exchange of looks and hands; what remained distinctive in Caravaggio's picture was the severe reduction of setting and the darkness that closes around Peter.[4][5]
The study distinguishes these inventions from faithful copies: it identifies a group of Roman adaptations but says no exact copy of the canvas is known. That pattern is consistent with the picture being available for study in Rome after the 1613 settlement, though it does not by itself establish where Reni kept it or which artists viewed it.[5] Met curator Keith Christiansen later compares Valentin's Denial with Caravaggio's more suspended instant. Valentin places gamblers and airborne dice alongside Peter's accusation, making the next movement feel imminent. This helps clarify the afterlife of Caravaggio's design: later painters could keep the confrontation while restoring a busier setting and a more explicit passage of time.[9]
Explore the Caravaggio collection
| Name | Date | Type |
|---|---|---|
| Adoration of the Shepherds by Caravaggio: The Messina Nativity | 1608–09; precise order relative to Resurrection of Lazarus remains unresolved | Artwork |
| Amor Victorious by Caravaggio | 1601–02 in the Berlin owner record | Artwork |
| Bacchus by Caravaggio: The Uffizi Painting | about 1598, according to the Uffizi | Artwork |
| Basket of Fruit by Caravaggio | after 1597, probably around the turn of the seventeenth century, according to the Ambrosiana | Artwork |
| Boy Bitten by a Lizard: Caravaggio's London Painting | about 1594–95 in the National Gallery's current catalogue; URL suffix “1596” is inherited | Artwork |
| Boy Bitten by a Lizard: The Florence Version Attributed to Caravaggio | disputed; Longhi's catalogue record preserves historical 1592–93 and other proposed ranges, including c.1597 | Artwork |
| Boy Peeling Fruit by Caravaggio: The Royal Collection Painting | about 1592–93 in the owner's current exhibition record | Artwork |
| Boy Peeling Fruit in Florence: A Derivation from Caravaggio | — | Artwork |
| Boy with a Basket of Fruit by Caravaggio | about 1595 in the Galleria Borghese catalogue | Artwork |
| Caravaggio Paintings in Rome: Churches, Museums and a Practical Route | — | Guide |
| Caravaggio Quotes: What the Documents Actually Record | — | Guide |
| Caravaggio's Lute Player: The Del Monte Painting Once Shown at the Met | about 1596–97 in the Met catalogue | Artwork |
| Caravaggio's Painting Technique: Grounds, Incisions, Revisions and Light | — | Guide |
| Christ at the Column by Caravaggio: The Rouen Flagellation | c.1606 in the owner caption; owner prose gives 1606–07 | Artwork |
| Christ on the Mount of Olives by Caravaggio: The Lost Berlin Painting | — | Artwork |
| Conversion on the Way to Damascus by Caravaggio | about 1601 in the Roma Capitale church record | Artwork |
| Crowning with Thorns by Caravaggio: The Vienna Painting | about 1603 in the 2019 KHM record; “1607” is an inherited URL suffix | Artwork |
| Crowning with Thorns in Prato: Attributed to Caravaggio | about 1602–03 in the collection presentation | Artwork |
| David with the Head of Goliath by Caravaggio: The Borghese Painting | 1606–07 or 1609–10 in the Galleria Borghese catalogue; the later Naples period is favoured by many scholars, while the owner keeps the question open | Artwork |
| David with the Head of Goliath by Caravaggio: The Prado Painting | about 1600 in Prado material; “1599” survives only in the legacy URL | Artwork |
| David with the Head of Goliath by Caravaggio: The Vienna Painting | about 1600–01 in the KHM's 2019 exhibition record; “1607” is a legacy route label | Artwork |
| Did Caravaggio Make Drawings? What Survives and What Paintings Reveal | — | Guide |
| Ecce Homo: Caravaggio's Madrid Rediscovery and the Genoa Painting | — | Artwork |
| John the Baptist in Caravaggio's Paintings: A Guide to the Different Versions | — | Artwork |
| Judith Beheading Holofernes by Caravaggio | beginning of the seventeenth century in the owning museum's account; about 1599–1600 in the Kimbell's 2025 loan label; around 1602 in one specialist catalogue | Artwork |
| Jupiter, Neptune and Pluto: Caravaggio's Ludovisi Ceiling | about 1597; the archive connects the work with Cardinal del Monte's 1597 commission | Artwork |
| Madonna and Child with Saint Anne by Caravaggio: The Palafrenieri Altarpiece | 1605 in the Galleria Borghese object field; completed and delivered by 8 April 1606 | Artwork |
| Madonna of Loreto by Caravaggio: The Pilgrims at Sant'Agostino | broadly c.1604–06; institutional records differ slightly in their starting year | Artwork |
| Madonna of the Rosary by Caravaggio: The Vienna Altarpiece | around 1603 in the Kunsthistorisches Museum's object record | Artwork |
| Martha and Mary Magdalene by Caravaggio: The Detroit Painting | about 1598 in the Detroit Institute of Arts record | Artwork |
| Medusa by Caravaggio: The Uffizi Painted Shield | 1596–98 in the Uffizi's virtual exhibition; specialist research reports the shield delivered to the Medici wardrobe by 7 September 1598 | Artwork |
| Narcissus, Attributed to Caravaggio | dependent on attribution; the Zeri catalogue gives a broad 1610–50 range under Spadarino | Artwork |
| Nativity with Saint Francis and Saint Lawrence: Caravaggio's Missing Painting | somewhere in 1600–09 in the parliamentary report; a specific 1609 execution and place remain debated | Artwork |
| Penitent Mary Magdalene by Caravaggio | 1597 in the owner's catalogue, during Caravaggio's early Roman activity | Artwork |
| Portrait of a Courtesan: Caravaggio's Lost Berlin Portrait | Berlin's data field says c.1590, while its own text compares a Caravaggio work of c.1598; precise date unresolved | Artwork |
| Portrait of Alof de Wignacourt and His Page by Caravaggio | — | Artwork |
| Portrait of Fra Antonio Martelli? Caravaggio's Pitti Knight of Malta | 1608 in the Restituzioni object heading; within Caravaggio's Malta period | Artwork |
| Portrait of Maffeo Barberini: The Seated Corsini Painting | c.1596–97 in the national catalogue | Artwork |
| Portrait of Monsignor Maffeo Barberini: Caravaggio's Newly Acquired Painting | around the late 1590s / age thirty; “1598” in the inherited address is approximate, not an exact document date | Artwork |
| Portrait of Pope Paul V: A Caravaggio Attribution and a Borghese Copy | — | Artwork |
| Prints After Caravaggio: Who Made Them and What They Show | — | Guide |
| Reclining Saint John the Baptist: A Disputed Caravaggio Attribution | often proposed for the artist's final years; the later museum list does not give a precise year. | Artwork |
| Rest on the Flight into Egypt by Caravaggio | about 1597 in the owner's catalogue | Artwork |
| Saint Catherine of Alexandria by Caravaggio: The Thyssen Painting | about 1598–99 in the Museo Nacional Thyssen-Bornemisza catalogue | Artwork |
| Saint Francis in Meditation by Caravaggio: The Cremona Painting | 1603–06 in the owner account; c.1605–06 in a KHM exhibition caption | Artwork |
| Saint Francis in Prayer: Caravaggio's Carpineto Painting | 1606 in a 2016–17 exhibition work list | Artwork |
| Saint Francis of Assisi in Ecstasy by Caravaggio | c.1595–96 in the owner wall text | Artwork |
| Saint Jerome in Meditation: Caravaggio's Montserrat Painting | 1605 in the owner record; an owner publication reports scholarship placing it about 1605–06 | Artwork |
| Saint Jerome Writing by Caravaggio: The Borghese Painting | c.1606 in the owner catalogue; the “1605” URL suffix is inherited | Artwork |
| Saint Jerome Writing by Caravaggio: The Malta Painting | around 1607–08; foundation dates Malaspina's commission to 1608 | Artwork |
| Saint John in the Wilderness at Toledo Cathedral | exact 1598 not established by the cited cathedral account. | Artwork |
| Saint John the Baptist at Galleria Corsini, Rome | about 1606 in the national record; older proposals ranged from the late 1590s onward. | Artwork |
| Saint John the Baptist at the Capitoline Museums, Rome | 1602. | Artwork |
| Saint John the Baptist at the Galleria Borghese | 1609–10 in the current Borghese record. | Artwork |
| Saint John the Baptist at the Spring: The Bonello Painting in Malta | early seventeenth century in the institutional account; a precise 1608 is not established there. | Artwork |
| Saint Matthew and the Angel: Caravaggio's Lost First Altarpiece | — | Artwork |
| Salome Receives the Head of John the Baptist: Caravaggio's London Painting | about 1609–10, likely late Naples period in the Gallery's account | Artwork |
| Salome with the Head of John the Baptist: Caravaggio's Madrid Painting | — | Artwork |
| Sleeping Cupid by Caravaggio: The Painting Made in Malta | about 1608, Malta period | Artwork |
| Still Life with Fruit on a Stone Ledge: Is It by Caravaggio? | — | Artwork |
| Supper at Emmaus (1606): Caravaggio's Brera Painting | — | Artwork |
| The Annunciation by Caravaggio in Nancy | c.1607–10 in the collection record; 1608–10 in the museum's restoration account | Artwork |
| The Basel Saint John the Baptist: Once Labelled Caravaggio, Now Maíno | about 1608–10 in that schedule, rather than the legacy URL's 1600. | Artwork |
| The Beheading of Saint John the Baptist by Caravaggio | about 1608; installed in the Oratory on 29 August 1608 | Artwork |
| The Burial of Saint Lucy by Caravaggio in Syracuse | 1608, during Caravaggio's Syracuse stay | Artwork |
| The Calling of Saint Matthew by Caravaggio | about 1599–1600 | Artwork |
| The Calling of Saints Peter and Andrew by Caravaggio | about 1602–04 in the Trust's object text | Artwork |
| The Cardsharps by Caravaggio | about 1596–97 in the Kimbell's current object record | Artwork |
| The Conversion of Saint Paul: Caravaggio's Odescalchi Panel | commissioned in 1600; painted around 1600–01 | Artwork |
| The Crucifixion of Saint Andrew by Caravaggio | 1606–07 | Artwork |
| The Crucifixion of Saint Peter by Caravaggio | about 1601 | Artwork |
| The Death of the Virgin by Caravaggio | commissioned 1601; completed late 1605 or early 1606, according to the Louvre | Artwork |
| The Denial of Saint Peter by Caravaggio | 1610 | Artwork |
| The Doria Pamphilj Saint John the Baptist: A Second Youth with a Ram | linked compositionally to the Capitoline 1602 picture; an exact production year for this canvas is not established by the owner pages used here. | Artwork |
| The Entombment of Christ by Caravaggio: The Vatican Deposition | about 1600–04 in Vatican Museums publication material | Artwork |
| The Flagellation of Christ by Caravaggio: The Capodimonte Altarpiece | around 1607, in the first Naples period | Artwork |
| The Fortune Teller by Caravaggio: The Louvre Version and Its Roman Counterpart | — | Artwork |
| The Holy Family with the Infant Saint John the Baptist by Caravaggio | early 1600s in the Met catalogue; no more exact owner date asserted here | Artwork |
| The Incredulity of Saint Thomas by Caravaggio | about 1601 in the SPSG presentation | Artwork |
| The Inspiration of Saint Matthew by Caravaggio | usually 1602; also catalogued 1602–03, for the installed final altarpiece | Artwork |
| The Lute Player by Caravaggio: The Hermitage Painting | about 1596 in the Hermitage collection publication; the Hermitage Friends restoration page gives about 1595–96 | Artwork |
| The Magdalen in Ecstasy: Caravaggio, Copies and a Disputed Original | — | Artwork |
| The Martyrdom of Saint Matthew by Caravaggio | 1599–1600; unveiled with The Calling in 1600 | Artwork |
| The Martyrdom of Saint Ursula by Caravaggio | — | Artwork |
| The Musicians by Caravaggio | 1597 | Artwork |
| The Resurrection of Lazarus by Caravaggio in Messina | 1609; delivered 10 June 1609 in the owner account | Artwork |
| The Sacrifice of Isaac by Bartolomeo Cavarozzi: A Former Caravaggio Attribution | about 1615–17 in the Nicholas Hall catalogue; “1598” is an inherited URL label, not the accepted date | Artwork |
| The Sacrifice of Isaac by Caravaggio: The Uffizi Painting | about 1603 in the Uffizi catalogue | Artwork |
| The Seven Works of Mercy by Caravaggio | 1606–07, according to the Pio Monte | Artwork |
| The Supper at Emmaus by Caravaggio: The London Painting | 1601 | Artwork |
| The Taking of Christ by Caravaggio | 1602 | Artwork |
| The Toulouse *Judith Beheading Holofernes*: A Caravaggio Attribution Debate | c.1606–07 if identified with the recorded Naples work; that identification is debated | Artwork |
| Young Sick Bacchus by Caravaggio | about 1595 in the Galleria Borghese catalogue | Artwork |
| Youth with a Ram: Why Caravaggio's Saint John Looks So Unusual | — | Artwork |
No matching pages found.
Discussion
Share a close observation about The Denial of Saint Peter by Caravaggio or a source that clarifies its history.
Which detail changes your reading?
Is there a collection record or document worth comparing?
What remains uncertain?
Join the Conversation
Frequently Asked Questions
Where is The Denial of Saint Peter?
It belongs to The Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York, object 1997.167. The museum's current page gives display information.[1]
When was it painted?
The Met dates it to 1610, the last year of Caravaggio's life, and connects its method with late Naples work.[1]
Why are fingers pointing at Peter?
Does the painting show all three denials literally at once?
Who owned the painting soon after Caravaggio's death?
The Met records Guido Reni as its owner in 1613; he received it from engraver Luca Ciamberlano as compensation for debts.[1]
References
- The Metropolitan Museum of Art, The Denial of Saint Peter, 1997.167.
- United States Conference of Catholic Bishops, Mark 14:66–72.
- The Metropolitan Museum of Art, The Musicians, 52.81.
- The Metropolitan Museum of Art, Valentin de Boulogne: Beyond Caravaggio, catalogue discussion of Ribera's Denial of Saint Peter.
- Michele Nicolaci and Riccardo Gandolfi, “Il Caravaggio di Guido Reni: la Negazione di Pietro tra relazioni artistiche e operazioni finanziarie”, Storia dell'arte 130 (2011), pp. 41–64 and documentary appendix, especially the 3 May 1613 receipt.
- Keith Christiansen, Going for Baroque: Bringing 17th-Century Masters to the Met, Metropolitan Museum of Art Bulletin 62, no. 3 (2005), pp. 33–35.
- Keith Christiansen, “What Is in a Gesture?”, The Metropolitan Museum of Art, 28 March 2017.
- The Metropolitan Museum of Art, Caravaggio's Last Two Paintings, exhibition overview, 11 April–9 July 2017.
- Keith Christiansen, “Suspending Time in Valentin de Boulogne's Scenes,” The Metropolitan Museum of Art, 15 September 2016.
- Nicholas Hall, “Caravaggio in America – Part 3,” section “The Met's Second Caravaggio”, with notes 198–220 and citations to provenance publications, dealer letters and a 2011 communication from Keith Christiansen.
- Senato della Repubblica, 18th legislature, Senate sitting 270, question 3-02048, 29 October 2020.
- Annotated image source: The Metropolitan Museum of Art, The Denial of Saint Peter, collection image, high-resolution reproduction used for the annotated details.
