The Denial of Saint Peter 1790

Louis Lafitte made this drawing, “The Denial of Saint Peter”, sometime in the late 18th or early 19th century. It depicts the moment in the New Testament when Saint Peter denies knowing Jesus, an event freighted with spiritual and moral significance for Christians. Notice how Lafitte uses the architecture of the courtyard to frame Peter’s denial as a public spectacle. Peter sits in the lower right, illuminated by the fire, as a group of onlookers accuses him. The use of classical architecture and the Roman soldiers’ garb places the scene within a lineage of power and judgment. Lafitte was working in France during and after the French Revolution, a period when the Catholic Church was under intense scrutiny. The artist’s choice to depict this specific biblical scene may reflect the broader social and political anxieties surrounding religious authority at the time. To fully understand this work, we can look at the histories of both religious and secular institutions, like the French Academy, as well as popular political movements of the time.