DUTCH CARAVAGGIO PAINTER OF THE 18TH CENTURY Denial of St. Peter Oil on canvas, 93X129 cm The painting has been declared to be of extraordinary artistic and historical interest and subject to notification; it may therefore not be exported from Italy. The painting has been declared of extraordinary historical and artistic interest and subjected to a notification regime, it cannot be exported from Italy. Provenance: Private collection In terms of quality, style and conservation, the painting is an interesting testimony of Caravaggio's art and the author shows his knowledge of Roman painting in the early 17th century, including the Manfredi variations undertaken by foreign artists. The theme of Peter's negation was a successful iconography during the Baroque age, an ideal subject for those artists fascinated by the tenebrous language and with a desire to measure themselves against Merisi's model now in the Metropolitan Museum in New York. The image depicts the saint's encounter with Caiaphas' servant, at the moment when she says to him in the presence of the armiger: 'you too were with the Nazzareno, with Jesus', and the apostle denies it by bringing his right hand to his chest. The scenic reconstruction not only characterises the historical narration, but also accentuates its dramatic nature, its human pathos. Peter has been recognised, he feels uncovered, and is forced to deny the person dearest to him. Returning to the stylistic features, the painting reveals the Flemish training of the author, the results of which evoke, for example, the works of Jan Cossiers (Antwerp 1600 ; 1671), an artist documented in the Eternal City in 1624 (Allgemeines Künstlerlexikon: die bildenden Künstler aller Zeiten und Völker, vol. 21 (1999), p. 410), where he stayed at least until 1626, being registered in the Antwerp guild in 1628. The typology of the faces and gazes, particularly of the female figure and the man on the left with the red hat, seem to lead to him, but the expression of St. Peter and the profile of the henchman can also provide a useful attributive clue, suggesting a date of execution in the third decade.