Detail from Death of St. Peter Martyr (?): Soldier About to Stab a Kneeling Monk

The drawing probably depicts the assassination of St. Peter Martyr, a subject made famous in Venice from its treatment by Titian in an altarpiece for SS. Giovanni e Paolo (destroyed before 1867). The old attribution on the drawing must refer to the Titian painting. Saint Peter Martyr was a Dominican friar, who in 1252 was murdered in a wood by heretics. His companion was also attacked and wounded but escaped. Giovanni Bellini (ca. 1431/1436-1516) and Bernardino da Asola (fl. 1512-1531) also treated the subject (both National Gallery, London¹), though the drawing does not correspond to any of these paintings.

The drawing may well be a copy and probably dates from the late sixteenth or seventeenth century.

Footnotes:

1. National Gallery, London, inv. NG812, NG41.