Die Befreiung Petri (Kopie nach)

Die Befreiung Petri — the Liberation of Peter from prison by an angel (Acts 12:6–11) — was a subject Honthorst had treated in a celebrated 1616 composition now in the Gemäldegalerie, Berlin. The 1624 canvas in the Bavarian State Painting Collections is catalogued as a copy after that earlier work, produced either in his workshop or by a follower when demand for the composition exceeded the master's capacity. The subject was perfectly suited to Honthorst's nocturnal speciality: an angel appearing in a prison cell at night, illuminating a sleeping Peter with supernatural light, offered the exact conditions for his most distinctive effects — upward illumination, dramatic contrast between sleeping figure and radiant supernatural visitor. The Berlin original established this as one of his most admired religious compositions; copies were a natural commercial response to that success.

Oil on canvas copying Honthorst's celebrated nocturnal composition. The angel as light source recurs in his religious work as a theological and technical device: supernatural illumination justifies extreme tonal contrasts and unusual lighting angles. Workshop copies preserve the compositional structure while varying in execution quality.