The Denial of Saint Peter

In March 2000 an auction house in Nancy sold a canvas that had turned up in an attic in Lunéville, in Lorraine, catalogued as Lorraine school of the 17th century. It had been estimated at 100,000 francs and went for 8.3 million. The state classed it a national treasure, and the Louvre bought it in 2008.

Peter stands between a servant girl and two soldiers, one of them in armour, at the moment he denies knowing Christ, his face coming out of the shadow in a reddish light. The blue on his shoulder is lapis lazuli laid over indigo. The Louvre thinks this is probably the Saint Peter that the Royal Academy of Painting gave Cardinal Mazarin, the chief minister, in 1656, recorded as the work of the late Mathieu. Mathieu Le Nain was in fact alive until 1677, so that word long pointed scholars to his brothers Louis or Antoine. The museum now leans to Mathieu, on the dense, ruddy flesh and the long, supple fingers. X-rays show the scene painted over a portrait of a woman.