Masterpieces
Saint Peter in Tears
Murillo, Bartolomé Esteban
Seville, 31/12/1617-Seville, 03/04/1682
Oil on canvas
148 x 104 cm
c. 1650-1655
Mid-17th century
DEP632
Deposited by the Provincial Council of Bizkaia after transfer in lieu of tax by BBVA in 2000
He is seated, facing forward, with his fingers intertwined and his head raised, his eyes brimming with tears and gazing heavenward in a passionate expression of supplication. He is wearing a bluish-green tunic and orangey-ochre cloak, as recommended by Pacheco. The cloak envelops his left leg and is resting on the rock on which he is seated. By his side, a book and a key attached to a ribbon. Unseen and unknown until 2000, when it was displayed in the exhibition entitled The Tears of Saint Peter in Spanish Golden Age Painting, this beautiful work perfectly displays Murillo's most characteristic features. It dates from a relatively early stage in his output, around 1650-1655, while he was still heavily under the influence of Ribera, from whom the intense naturalism of the figure and the lighting in tenebrist tones come. These characteristics highlight the figure over a dark, uniform background in the style of Caravaggio, albeit wholly attenuated and reinterpreted in a clearly personal fashion.
Until then, only one Saint Peter in Tears had been recognised as a work rendered personally by Murillo. This painting, from the Hospital de Venerables Sacerdotes of Seville, is conserved in the Charles Towsend Collection of Newick. Others that had been attributed to him could not be his. In said work, which dates from later, Ribera's influence, while clear, has waned considerably in that, as Antonio Ponz observed when describing it in its original location, Murillo "set out to imitate Lo Spagnoletto, but clearly outdid him in the tenderness and softness of the colouring".
As Diego Angulo pointed out, while Murillo was composing the painting, he must have drawn inspiration from Ribera's two prints of Saint Jerome, since a series of details are borrowed from them (the saint's posture of leaning his elbows on the rock, the position of his feet and the book in the foreground) which are only justified by having seen them before. The idea of the landscape on the upper left part of the canvas is also clearly drawn from Ribera's oeuvre.
An outstanding drawing conserved in the British Museum, unquestionably by Murillo since it bears an inscription or signature that confirms it, has quite a different composition, yet one that is enormously expressive. That one includes a rooster and shows the apostle seated, crouched over himself, with his head raised and hands clasped in an attitude different to what better-known anvases show, attesting to the fact that the painter tested different solutions for the scene.
Regarding the painting exhibited here, it is very telling that it was attributed to Ribera in a public sale held in Holland, precisely the same one in which the portrait of Nicolás Omazur (today in the Museo del Prado) appeared, which was properly attributed to Murillo. The assumption of Ribera's authorship remained for many years, and the painting went through several different Italian and Spanish collections before it was suggested that it might be attributed to Murillo, a wholly convincing suggestion. It must date from relatively early and must precede the one from Los Venerables by about twenty years. The three-quarters body position, in a slightly descending diagonal line from right to left, the uniformly dark background and the stone on which the book and key rest relate it to works such as the Saint Jerome at the Cleveland Museum and the ones in the Hermitage in Sant Petersburg and the Vienna Museum. The latter cannot be considered his, and the one at the Hermitage is quite likely a copy or derivation more poorly wrought than the one displayed here.
This time, Murillo offers an image that is absorbing and dogmatic in its simplicity. The face, which displays a contained pathos, very skilfully conveys pain and hope, and the treatment of the canvas is typical of the canvases from around 1650, with even more precise drawing and painstakingly shaped folds with rounded edges, unlike the sharper forms from later dates. It could be compared to some of the famous works from those years, and even some from before then, such as the Holy Family in the Dublin Museum or the Last Supper in Santa María la Blanca church in Seville, all of them also dating from around 1650. The X-ray studies performed at the Bilbao Fine Arts Museum concluded that there had been no significant changes in the composition and that its state of conservation was sound. The pigments and Murillo's preparation of the canvas were characteristic of Sevillian paintings from his era; they included white lead, yellow lead and tin, ochre, vermillion, red lead, umber, azurite and charcoal black.
The appearance of this Saint Peter in Tears is unquestionably a huge contribution to the master's catalogue, as convincingly established by Diego Angulo in 1981. I understand that he learned about the painting after his monograph had been published, and that he noticed its quality and considered it wholly from the hand of the master and quite a significant work within his oeuvre. [Alfonso Emilio Pérez Sánchez]
Selected bibliography
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- García Gutiérrez, Pedro Francisco. "Las lágrimas de San Pedro en el Barroco", Galería Antiqvaria, n° 184. 2000. p. 26. (Con el título San Pedro en lágrimas, y atribuido a Bartolomé Esteban Murillo).
- Pérez Sánchez, Alfonso Emilio. As bágoas de San Pedro na pintura española do século de ouro [Folleto]. A Coruña, Museo de Belas Artes, 2000. pp. 21-23, 39, il.
- Zugaza, Miguel ... [et al.]. Maestros antiguos y modernos en las colecciones del Museo de Bellas Artes de Bilbao. Bilbao, Museo de Bellas Artes de Bilbao, 2001. p. 46.
- Bilbao a Genova : la cultura cambia le città [Cat. exp.]. Milano, Skira, 2003. pp. 100-101, n° cat. 14. (Con el título San Pietro in lacrime, y atribuido a Bartolomé Esteban Murillo)
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- "El Museo de Bellas Artes de Bilbao expone una pintura inédita de Murillo", El Mundo. 09/02/2000.
- 110 Años 110 Obras [Cat. exp.]. Bilbao, Bilboko Arte Ederren Museoa-Museo de Bellas Artes de Bilbao, 2018. pp. 110-113, sin n° cat.
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- "Una exposición del Barroco arropará el nuevo Murillo del Museo de Bilbao", El Correo. 08/04/2000.
- "El nuevo Murillo", El Correo. 12/04/2000.
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- "El Bellas Artes adquiere ...", El País. 12/04/2000.
- "La Diputación Vizcaína ha comprado un Murillo", Gara. 12/04/2000.
- "La Diputación Foral adquiere un lienzo de Murillo para el Museo de Bellas Artes", Deia. 12/04/2000.
- "El cuadro ”San Pedro en lágrimas” de Murillo, pasa al Museo de Bellas Artes de Bilbao", El Punto. 14/04/2000.
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- "”San Pedro en lágrimas” se expone en Bilbao", Gara. 09/05/2000.
- "El Museo de Bellas Artes muestra la iconografía del arrepentimiento de San Pedro : el Museo de Bellas Artes ofrece la visión de San Pedro penitente por grandes maestros del XVII", El País. 09/05/2000.
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- "Las lágrimas de San Pedro en la Pintura española del Siglo de Oro", El Correo. 20/07/2000.
- "El Museo de Bilbao restaura el ”San Lesmes” de Murilo y otras obras del siglo XVII", El Correo. 09/05/2002.
- "El Museo de Bellas Artes restaura uno de sus ”murillos”", <i>EL PAÍS</i>. 09/05/2002.
- "El museo de Bilbao se queda una obra de Lipchitz traída para una muestra del artista", El Correo. 11/06/2003.
- "Lágrimas en el Museo", El Correo. 05/09/2005.