The Penitent Saint Peter

This recently rediscovered painting has been dated by Bernhard Schnackenburg to 1625 (loc. cit.). As is typical of Lievens' early works before 1628, here his primary souce of inspiration is the Utrecht Caravaggisti. The tormented facial expression, preference for the depiction of the figure at half-length and striking chiaroscuro with artificial light effects can likewise be found in paintings like Hendrick ter Brugghen's Penitent Saint Peter, a composition known today through two workshop examples, one in the Centraal Museum, Utrecht, and another in a French private collection (see L.J. Slatkes and W. Franits, The Paintings of Hendrick ter Brugghen: Catalogue Raisonné, Amsterdam, 2007, pp. 223-224, 406-407, nos. W9-W10, pls. 97, 97a).
As is typical of Dutch depictions of Saint Peter, Lievens does not conceive of the saint as the founder of the church but an anguished and fallible human being, who, in accordance with Christ's prediction, denied him three times before acknowledging his betrayal and repenting (Mark 14: 29-31, 66-72). The rough, thick application of paint is perfectly suited to Peter's tortured expression and finds parallels not only in paintings like Lievens' Simeon with the Christ Child (art market, Amsterdam) and Penitent Magdalene (Musée de la Chartreuse, Douai) but those of his Leiden colleague, Rembrandt van Rijn, with whom Lievens would shortly share a studio.