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Lot Essay
A study with differences for one of the two frescoes executed circa 1657-58 as overdoors by Mola in the Capella Ravenna in the Chiesa del Gesù, Rome (Fig. 1; Petrucci, op.cit., no.D.26). According to the apocryphal story associated with Saints Peter and Paul's imprisonment in the Mamertine prison in Rome, a spring flowed miraculously in their cells, allowing Saint Peter to baptize his fellow prisoners, including two Roman soldiers, Processus and Martinian, who were guards in the prison and who would soon become martyrs. In the present drawing, Peter is shown at the left of the composition raising his left arm.
Two other studies for the overall composition are known, one in a private collection which may have been executed soon after the present drawing (Petrucci, op. cit., p. 471, fig. D.26.1) and a larger and more finished sheet in the Musée Fabre, Montpellier, which is closer in composition to the fresco (Cocke, op. cit., fig. 80). There are also several individual figure studies related to the composition.
Fig. 1. Pier Francesco Mola, Saint Peter in prison baptizing Saints Processus and Martinian, Rome, Chiesa del Gesù
Two other studies for the overall composition are known, one in a private collection which may have been executed soon after the present drawing (Petrucci, op. cit., p. 471, fig. D.26.1) and a larger and more finished sheet in the Musée Fabre, Montpellier, which is closer in composition to the fresco (Cocke, op. cit., fig. 80). There are also several individual figure studies related to the composition.
Fig. 1. Pier Francesco Mola, Saint Peter in prison baptizing Saints Processus and Martinian, Rome, Chiesa del Gesù