Saint Peter

This panel is one half of a conversation that lost its other side. Around 1530 Moretto da Brescia, born Alessandro Bonvicino, painted this Saint Peter and, on a matching panel, a John the Baptist, the two side wings of a triptych. In the middle stood a third figure that has since vanished, most likely an adult Christ. You can still read the loss in the pose. Peter stands full-length against a low range of hills, his body and his gaze turned inward, toward a centre that is no longer there, holding the keys given to the first shepherd of the church. Both saints were built to lean toward that missing panel, so the whole thing worked as a silent exchange of gestures. When the picture later passed through the Manfrin collection in Venice, restorers cut down its originally arched top and added painted triangular patches to make it a neat rectangle. The Accademia acquired it in 1856. A recent cleaning stripped away the old varnishes and a greenish 19th-century repaint, and brought back the cold, silvery light Moretto was after.