St Peter’s Denial

Entry

This is one of the few paintings by Bramer to show the clear influence of the Dutch followers of Caravaggio. The strong chiaroscuro caused by an artificial light source that illuminates the large figures in the foreground of an otherwise dark room, and their fanciful 16th-century uniforms in subdued colours, are particularly reminiscent of the work of Gerard van Honthorst (see for example SK-A-4837). Caravaggio’s style was popular among both Italian and foreign artists in Rome when Bramer arrived there by the end of the second decade of the 17th century at the latest. Even though Bramer shared a house from 1620 to 1622 with Wouter Crabeth, who was one of those followers, his work does not betray the influence of these Caravaggisti.² Upon his return to Holland in 1628 the popularity of Caravaggio’s style had run its course. One would therefore not expect this work, which is his only dated Caravaggesque painting, to be from 1642. Together with the Return of the Prodigal Son,³ which is similar in scale and style and also has a large soldier with a feathered hat in the foreground, the Rijksmuseum picture seems to have been an exception in Bramer’s painted oeuvre. Both paintings are also exceptional for their large size. Only four other canvases out of the 160 works or more that are considered authentic are of comparable monumentality.⁴

Slatkes considered that this late Caravaggesque work by Bramer may have come about as the result of Crijn Hendricksz Volmarijn’s influence on him. Volmarijn was a Rotterdam painter who specialized in candlelit scenes at tables. He was strongly influenced by Honthorst, and continued to paint in his style until his death.⁵ Although this theory cannot be ruled out, it does appear to be a rather complicated explanation for the late Caravaggesque style of the Rijksmuseum picture, especially because Bramer lived in Rome for a considerable time. However, what it does illustrate is that although Utrecht Caravaggism came to an end in 1630, it did occasionally flourish in other artistic centres in the Dutch Republic.

The subject of St Peter’s Denial was also popular amongst the Caravaggisti, who often gave the playing soldiers a prominent place, although mostly in half-length compositions. An example of these are two of Gerard van Honthorst’s depictions of the subject in the museum in Rennes and in a private collection.⁶ As in those pictures, it is usually the maid who holds the candle to show St Peter’s embarrassment, and not one of the soldiers, as in Bramer’s painting. Here the soldier uses the candle to light the game, and seems unaware of the dramatic event that is taking place in the shadowy background, even though the maid tries to catch his attention by grasping his left shoulder.

The low vantage point and size of the composition might suggest that the picture was intended as an overmantel. This hypothesis is supported by Bramer’s largest painting, A Merry Company on a Terrace Making Music, which also has a similarly low vantage point and was probably commissioned as the overmantel for the Nieuwe Doelen in Delft.⁷ There is, however, substantial evidence that the Rijksmuseum painting was cut down considerably at either the top or the bottom, as suggested by the authors of the monographic catalogue of the 1994 exhibition in Delft.⁸

Slatkes pointed out that although this Caravaggesque composition might be one of the few exceptions in Bramer’s extensive painted oeuvre, it is not so amongst his drawings.⁹ Many of them are Caravaggesque compositions with a strong chiaroscuro, and four can be related to the Rijksmuseum St Peter’s Denial. A sheet in Leipzig has a drawing of the same subject on both sides (fig. a). The composition of the recto is particularly close to this painting. The two soldiers, the maid and St Peter are more or less in the same positions as in the painting, and even the soldiers in the left background are included. The main difference from the painting is that the soldiers in the foreground are shown at half-length, that the one on the left does not hold a candle, and that the soldier standing between the maid and St Peter is absent. The composition is altered considerably on the verso of the Leipzig drawing, though it does include the two soldiers in the foreground, who are this time playing dice with a third man at their table.¹⁰ In a third drawing of the subject, which also shows the soldiers playing, Peter stands in the foreground on the left side of the table, while the maid stands behind the table and points him out.¹¹ The fourth drawing, in the Courtauld Institute in London, again shows the soldiers playing at a table, but now the maid standing behind them addresses Peter, who is seated in the left background.

Taco Dibbits, 2007

See Bibliography and Rijksmuseum painting catalogues
See Key to abbreviations and Acknowledgements

This entry was published in J. Bikker (ed.), Dutch Paintings of the Seventeenth Century in the Rijksmuseum Amsterdam, I: Artists Born between 1570 and 1600, coll. cat. Amsterdam 2007, no. 29.