Apostle Peter

Around 1629 Rembrandt was in his early 20s, still living in Leiden, the Dutch town where he was born, and not yet the famous Amsterdam master. He was making his name with heads of old men, apostles, saints and philosophers, worked up from ordinary local models he found nearby. Here Saint Peter is an ageing man with a heavy brow, caught in a shaft of light against deep shadow. That strong contrast of dark and bright was in the air. Dutch painters in Utrecht had brought it home from Italy, where followers of Caravaggio used it to make holy figures feel physically present. Rembrandt seized on it early. He kept the drama in the light and the face, and left almost everything else to the dark.