St. Peter Enthroned with Saints

The keys, and the chair

Peter is named by keys, usually a pair, and the convention is among the oldest and least negotiable in Christian art. Two further signs travel with him: an inverted cross, from the tradition about his death, and a face type — older, bearded, broad-browed — repeated so consistently that it functions as an attribute in its own right. An enthroned subject adds a fourth element that is not an object at all: the chair. Placing a saint on a throne is a statement about rank, and it is the reason the keys in such a picture are usually held rather than carried.

What the record holds

The catalogue dates the work to 1516 and gives Palazzo Brera, Milan, Italy as its location. The dimensions are 156 x 146 cm, close to square — an unusual proportion, and the one that suits a central seated figure with standing figures to either side. It is filed under portraiture, Religion and religious cultural heritage, with High Renaissance as the style and Italian as the nationality; the measured colour family is brown.

And the ones the title does not name

The phrase with Saints at the end of this title is doing what it does in 65 other titles in this catalogue: acknowledging figures it declines to identify. Peter is named because his keys made him nameable long before the entry was written. The others are left to their objects.