NARRATOR:
Light draws the viewer’s gaze through a dark, forbidding dungeon. The vaulted ceiling is illuminated by an oil lamp, it’s glow bouncing off the surrounding walls. Guards have fallen asleep during a card game, unaware of the two small figures in the background quietly leaving. The subject of this painting is the liberation of the apostle Peter, who had been jailed by King Herod of Galilee. In the middle of the night, an angel miraculously appeared and led him to freedom. The biblical event was said to foreshadow the Church’s deliverance from Roman persecution.
The Liberation of St. Peter is one of approximately 25 versions of the subject by the Dutch painter Hendrick van Steenwijck. Here, he uses the biblical figures as a pretext to display his virtuoso handling of architectural space. He depicts the cavernous building with scientific accuracy, using light and shadow to heighten the drama of the moment.
Steenwijck began by drawing a perspectival scheme directly onto the panel. Then he filled it in with browns, yellows and silvery highlights. If you look closely, you can still see the gridlines under the thinly painted surface, leading our eye along the checkered floor into the distance.
Paintings like this were called “perspectives.” The term also referred to life-size, illusionistic wall decorations that simulated actual space. The idea of science in the service of art appealed to the 17th-century taste for fanciful deception, and perspectives were owned by some of the most prominent collectors in Europe.
The Liberation of St. Peter
1618
Hendrick van Steenwijck the Younger (Dutch, 1580-c.1648)
On View
Hendrick van Steenwijck was known by his contemporaries as a painter of architectural motifs. Gothic church interiors, palace terraces and prison interiors formed the subjects of much of his work. The dimly lit, vaulted prison interior with deep perspectival space and sleeping guards is completely characteristic of paintings by Steenwijck, who used geometry and mathematical formulas in his compositions. St. Peter’s liberation by the angel after being imprisoned by King Herod is just one of several focal points in the composition. Steenwijck painted more than 25 versions of this subject, each of them slightly different from the others.
Details
- Artist Name: Hendrick van Steenwijck the Younger (Dutch, 1580-c.1648)
- Title: The Liberation of St. Peter
- Date: 1618
- Medium: Oil on panel
- Dimensions: 20-1/2 x 25-3/4 in. (52.1 x 65.4 cm)
- Credit Line: Norton Simon Art Foundation, Gift of Mr. Norton Simon
- Accession Number: M.1979.58.P
- Copyright: © Norton Simon Art Foundation
Object Information
Private English Collection.
[Brian Koester Gallery, London].
M. J. Green (sale, Sotheby's, London, 10 July 1974, no. 112, to);
Norton Simon, Los Angeles, gift, 1979 to;
Norton Simon Art Foundation.
[Brian Koester Gallery, London].
M. J. Green (sale, Sotheby's, London, 10 July 1974, no. 112, to);
Norton Simon, Los Angeles, gift, 1979 to;
Norton Simon Art Foundation.
Exhibition of Dutch and Flemish Paintings
- London, Brian Koester Gallery, 1971-10-11 to 1971-12
[on loan]
- Henry Art Gallery, 1974-08-12 to 1974-12-09
- Goldner, George with Lee Hendrix and Gloria Williams, European Drawings, Catalogue of the Collections, 1988, p. 222
- Howarth, Jeremy, The Steenwyck Family as Masters of Perspective, 2009, fig. II.C.12 p. 486
- Howarth, Jeremy, The Steenwyck Family as Masters of Perspective, 2009, pp77, 299 (64), 303 (8)
- Campbell, Sara, Collector Without Walls: Norton Simon and His Hunt for the Best, 2010, cat. 1071 p. 369
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