Scripture · Mark 15:40
Matthew 26:75
Saint Peter Repentant
Then Peter remembered the word that Jesus had spoken: “Before the rooster crows, you will deny Me three times.” And he went outside and wept bitterly.
The rooster is close enough to share Peter’s small pool of light. A warning that once sounded remote has become an object beside him, while his clasped hands and lowered face hold the scene in its aftermath.
About the artwork
The inscription at the upper right dates the painting to 1645 and says, in abbreviated Latin, that Georges de La Tour designed and painted it. That date complicates an older claim that the Nantes Denial of 1650 was his only dated canvas: this Peter was still unrecognized when the 1934 exhibition assembled his known work.
The picture belonged to the heirs of the Reverend William Lucas Chafy in Bath and reached the Cleveland Museum of Art in 1951. Cleveland describes Peter as caught in perpetual repentance. The painting can sustain that still moment, but the Gospel narratives do not end Peter’s life at his denial.
Featured in: Georges de La Tour’s Bible Paintings: The Candle Painter Hidden Under Other Names
What does Matthew 26:75 mean?
Matthew 26:75 follows Peter’s third denial in the high priest’s courtyard. The crowing rooster brings Jesus’ warning back to him; he goes outside and weeps bitterly. Remembering is the turning point between the spoken denial and its recognition.
John 21 later tells of the risen Jesus asking Peter three times about his love and entrusting him with the care of his sheep. That later scene is not painted here, but it prevents the isolated image of remorse from being mistaken for the whole of Peter’s biblical story.
Matthew 26:75 names the remembered warning behind Peter’s grief, while the rooster gives that memory a visible presence.
Sources
The Cleveland Museum of Art, Cleveland collection record.
Image source and rights declaration.
Matthew 26 — Berean Standard Bible. The paired text read with its surrounding chapter.
Georges de La Tour’s Bible Paintings: The Candle Painter Hidden Under Other Names. Exact-work research, history and interpretive qualifications for this reading.
Les Peintres de la réalité en France au XVIIe siècle (1934). Historical catalogue, used with the owning institution’s current attribution and dating.
Also from Matthew:Marriage of the VirginThe Dream of Saint Joseph
Continue looking:The Taking of ChristJudas Repentant, Returning the Pieces of SilverWatch and Pray