The Deliverance of Saint Peter

Saint Peter is miraculously freed from prison by an angel in this 1646 painting by David Teniers the Younger at the Wallace Collection. Teniers, the most prolific and commercially successful Flemish painter of his generation, is best known for peasant scenes and genre subjects, making this religious work somewhat unusual in his output. The dramatic subject of the angel's nocturnal rescue allowed Teniers to demonstrate his skill with candlelight effects.

Teniers stages the prison scene with characteristic attention to material textures—stone walls, iron chains, rough fabrics—that ground the supernatural event in tangible reality. The angel's radiance provides the primary light source, creating dramatic contrasts against the prison's darkness. His brushwork is precise and detailed in the foreground figures while allowing broader treatment of the background architecture.