Image scanned from a transparency and color-corrected by Pat Cagney.

Saint Peter

Artist Vittore Crivelli (Italian, ca. 1444 - 1501)

CultureItalian

Date15th century

MediumOil on panel

DimensionsOverall: 24 1/2 x 12 in. (62.2 x 30.5 cm)
Overall, Frame: 27 x 14 3/4 in. (68.6 x 37.5 cm)

Credit LineGift of Walter P. Chrysler, Jr.

Object number71.633

Collections

European Art before 1945

On View

Not on view

DescriptionSaint Peter wearing a holy robe, including a triple tiara, which is a Catholic symbol. He carries keys in his hands. The keys refer to Jesus's statement to Peter in Matthew 16:19, "I will give to thee the keys of the kingdom of heaven. And whatsoever thou shalt bind upon earth, it shall be bound also in heaven: and whatsoever thou shalt loose upon earth, it shall be loosed also in heaven."
Label TextVittore Crivelli Italian (ca.1444 -1501) Saint Peter and Saint Jerome Oil on panel Gift of Walter P. Chrysler, Jr. 71.633-.634 Carlo Crivelli's finely detailed and sharply delineated Gothic style (his Saint Anthony of Padua is on view in the same gallery) had considerable influence on painters working in the Marches in central Italy. Chief among them was his younger brother Vittore, who readily assumed Carlo's style. Vittore's small devotional images of Saint Peter (wearing the papal triple tiara and holding the keys to the kingdom of heaven) and Saint Jerome (the book he holds symbolizing his authorship of the Latin Bible) belonged to a larger, multi-panel altarpiece of the Virgin and Child by Vittore that was pulled apart in the early 20th century and is now divided among several collections (see illustration on gallery label). The fate of this dismembered polyptych is not unusual and should remind us that many early European paintings on view in museums today are actually fragments of originally larger and richer artistic programs. ProvenanceMonteprandone, Collegiata of San Niccolò, on the high altar at least, until moved to the sacristy in 1834; Rome, Pope Gregory XVI’s private collection, sent from Monteprandone on 26th September 1844; Victoria and Albert Museum collection (as part of larger Madonna and Child altarpiece), London, England, 1871; left museum by 1912; Arthur Hauth/Haupt, Düsseldorf, Germany, 1929; Charles Brinsley Marlay (d. 1912), London, England, ?-1912; Gustav Oberlaender (1867-1936), Go-Al-Do Manor, Reading, PA, and NY, ?-1936; Mrs. Harold M. Leinbach (Oberlaender's daughter), New York, NY, 1936-1939; Auctioned, Oberlaender estate sale, Parke-Bernet, NY (nos. 219-220) - at this point parts of the altarpiece broken up/sold separately, May 25-26, 1939; Walter P. Chrysler, Jr., New York, NY, dates unknown; Walter P. Chrysler, Jr. to Chrysler Museum of Art, 1971. Exhibition History"Behind the Seen: The Chrysler's Hidden Museum," Large Changing Gallery, Chrysler Museum of Art, Norfolk, Va., October 21, 2005 - February 19, 2006. Published ReferencesStefano Papetti et at., VITTORE CRIVELLI E LA PITTURA DEL SUO TEMPO NEL FERMANO, (Milano: Federico Motta Editore S.P.A., 1997), 136, 224, 253, 258.