The Story
Saints Peter, Martha, Mary Magdalen and Leonard or Four Saints is a 1514 oil on canvas altarpiece by Correggio, now in the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York City. He painted it for the church of Santa Maria della Misericordia and it shows Saint Peter, Saint Martha, Mary Magdalene and Leonard of Noblac.
Created in 1520 during the Renaissance period, this work belongs firmly within the religion & mythology tradition. Correggio worked at a moment when the rivalry between Catholic Baroque drama and Protestant restraint reshaped what a painting could mean. Every gesture, fabric, and gleam of light was decoded by contemporary viewers like a private language.
Executed in Oil on canvas, measuring 87 1/4 x 63 3/4 in. (221.6 x 161.9 cm), the surface rewards close looking. Correggio builds the composition through layered glazes and a tightly controlled palette, letting cool shadows recede so that the warm, lit passages step forward. The brushwork shifts from the precise to the almost dissolved — a hallmark of mature Baroque practice.
“A silence so complete it becomes its own witness.”
