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  • James Bowdoin III( Collector, Boston) - 1811.
  • Bowdoin College Museum of Art( Museum, Brunswick, Maine) 1811- . Bequest
  • Old Master Drawings at Bowdoin College
    • Bowdoin College Museum of Art. ( 5/17/1985 - 7/7/1985)
    • Clark Art Institute. ( 9/14/1985 - 10/27/1985)
    • University of Kansas. ( 1/19/1986 - 3/2/1986)
    • Art Gallery of Ontario. ( 5/17/1986 - 6/29/1986)
  • From Revolution to Statehood: Maine Towns, Maine People, 1783-1820
    • York Institute Museum. ( 4/5/1983 - 6/17/1983)
    • Bowdoin College Museum of Art. ( 6/30/1983 - 8/14/1983)
    • Bangor Historical Society. ( 9/7/1983 - 11/11/1983)
    • Westbrook College. ( 11/20/1983 - 12/31/1983)
    • Colby College Museum of Art. ( 1/29/1984 - 4/1/1984)
  • Drawing on Basics
    • Bowdoin College Museum of Art. ( 10/14/1993 - 12/19/1993)
  • Prints/Drawings & Drawings/Prints, 1500-1800
    • Bowdoin College Museum of Art. ( 8/4/2009 - 9/20/2009) 
Type: catalogue
Author: Henry Johnson
Document Title: Catalogue of the Bowdoin College Art Collections
Publ. Place: Brunswick,  Maine
Reference: no. 28
Section Title: Pt. I, The Bowdoin Drawings
Date: 1885

Type: catalogue
Author: Bowdoin College Museum of Art
Document Title: Bowdoin Museum of Fine Arts, Walker Art Bulding
Edition: 4th
Publ. Place: Brunswick, Maine
Reference: no. 28
Publisher: Bowdoin College
Section Title: Descriptive Catalogue of the . . .
Date: 1930

Author: P. Dreyer
Document Title: Zeitschrift für Kunstgeschichte, vol. 34, no. 3
Location: p. 189
Section Title: "Notizen sum malerischen und zeichnerischen Oeuvre der Maratta-Schule . . ."
Date: 1971

Type: exhibition catalogue
Author: David P. Becker
Document Title: Old Master Drawings at Bowdoin College
Publ. Place: Brunswick, Maine
Location: pp. 162-164
Reference: no. 76 (2 illus.)
Publisher: Bowdoin College
Date: 1985

As pointed out by Peter Dreyer, de' Pietri is known to have depicted at least three scenes from the Life of the Apostle Peter. A painting of the denouncing of Simon is in the Accademia di San Luca, Rome,1 for which this sheet and two drawings in Berlin are studies.2 This episode, in which Simon attempted to offer Peter gold in return for learning the secret of baptism, is described in Acts 8:9–24. The verso of the Bowdoin sheet shows the symbolic delivery of the keys of the Church to St. Peter's care (Matthew 16:8-19). Another double-sided sheet at Bowdoin (BCMA 1811.20) contains two versions of Peter's release from prison in Jerusalem (Acts 12:7—11). No paintings are known of the two latter subjects.

All three studies for the denunciation of Simon are executed in chalk, again with de' Pietri's customary restless experimentation with gestures and disposition of figures. The two Berlin studies are similar to each other. They lack the heavenly shower of the Holy Spirit seen here, but in other respects the three versions are much the same, with the bold figure of Peter dominating the center of the composition. Other red chalk studies like these are found at Bowdoin, Windsor Castle, and Christ Church, Oxford.3

1. Dreyer 1971, p. 189.

2. Ibid.

3. Cf. Blunt and Cooke 1960, cat. no. 678; and Byam Shaw 1976, cat. no. 657, repr. pl. 371-72.

Commentary credited to David P. Becker (or not otherwise captioned) appeared in his catalogue Old Master Drawings at Bowdoin College (Brunswick: Bowdoin College Museum of Art, 1985).