Saint Peter Repentant

Georges de La Tour

Cleveland Museum of Art

The image depicts a man sitting indoors. He has fair skin, a receding hairline with short hair on the sides of his head, and a beard and moustache. He wears a long dark robe with wide sleeves, a greenish cuff on one sleeve, and sandals. His body faces right; his head turns left. His left arm rests on a table in front of him; his right arm is bent at the elbow. A rooster sits on a plate on the table. A lamp with a conical shade sits on the floor beside the table. The man sits on a chair with a back. The background is dark. The mood appears contemplative. The man appears to be Saint Peter, one of Jesus' 12 apostles. A rooster appears in depictions of his story because he denied knowing Jesus three times before a rooster crowed on the night of Jesus' arrest.