drawing
- Museum number
- Pp,4.82
- Description
-
St Peter on Malta, study for a fresco; a group of figures, mostly seen from behind, a serpent before them
Pen and brown ink, over black chalk
Verso: A group of figures; including a man carrying a boy on his shoulders
Pen and brown ink
- Production date
- 1575-1644
- Dimensions
-
Height: 125 millimetres
-
Width: 148 millimetres
- $Inscriptions
-
- Curator's comments
- Lit.: N. Turner, 'Italian Drawings in the BM, Roman Baroque Drawings', London, 1999, I, no. 305
Turner 1999
The recto is a preparatory study for a fresco in a frieze with stories illustrating the life of St Paul in the Sala de' Svizzeri, prima camera degli stucchi, in the Palazzo Quirinale, Rome (Hess, 1935, pl.viiiB), which are datable c. 1615 (Pugliatti, 1977, p. 37, n. 72). The drawing prepares the scene in the centre of this composition, namely the two groups of figures standing around a camp fire. It shows the saint shaking off the snake, a detail not visible in the final painted version, which is dominated by the landscape setting.
Literature: Hess, 1935, pp. 36-7 and fig.xxxiva; Pugliatti, 1977, p. 148 and fig.222.
- Location
- Not on display
- Acquisition date
- 1824
- Department
- Prints and Drawings
- Registration number
- Pp,4.82
