Saint Peter

This one came to the Prado from a garden pavilion. Charles IV bought it while he was still buying for the Casita del Principe, the small house built for him at El Escorial, and the picture passed from there into the museum. It belongs to the apostle series Ribera supplied in the early 1630s, of which the Prado holds 13 canvases, and the museum dates it around 1630 on style and on how closely the composition sits beside his heads of ancient philosophers. Among a set the curators describe as uneven, this Peter is named with the Paul and the Bartholomew as one of the strongest. He holds a book, and the key that says who he is.