Looking at the painting, we 
are invited to participate in the drama across the fourth side of 
the table with Christ the only figure facing us.

Caravaggio uses the receding 
table to help plot the space inside the picture. 
The disciples’ arms confine the space at the side. 
Their motion helps draw us in.

Christ appearing to St Peter
Annibale CARRACCI (NG) Detail

The foreshortened arm  almost comes out of the picture. 
Caravaggio probably developed this idea from works 
he saw in Rome by artists such as Annibale Carracci.

Christ appearing to St Peter

Annibale CARRACCI
Painted 1601-2

Full title ‘Christ appearing to Saint Peter 
on the Appian Way (Domine Quo Vadis?)’
Wood, 77.4 x 56.3 cm 
No. 9, Purchased, 1826.

The incident is traditional but not 
very common in painting. During the 
persecutions under Nero, St Peter fled 
from Rome and on the Appian Way 
encountered a vision of Christ bearing 
his Cross. In answer to St Peter's question 
'Lord, where goest thou?', Christ said 
he was going to Rome to be crucified 
a second time; St Peter thereupon 
turned back and later suffered 
martyrdom there.

Painted in 1601-2, the work was 
almost certainly commissioned by 
or on behalf of Cardinal Pietro 
Aldobrandini, in whose collection 
it is recorded in 1603.

Annibale Carracci (Bologna, November 3, 1560 - Rome, July 15, 1609 was a prominent Italian Baroque painter
Annibale in all likelihood first apprenticed within his family. In 1582, Annibale, his brother Agostino, and his cousin Ludovico Carracci opened a painter's studio, called by some initially as the Academy of Desiderosi (Desirous of fame and learning) or subsequently of the Incamminati (progressives; literally "of those opening a new way"). While the Carraccis laid emphasis on the typically Florentine linear draftsmanship, as exemplified by Raphael and Andrea del Sarto, their style also derived from Venetian painters an attention to the glimmering colors and mistier edge of objects. This eclecticism would define artists of the Baroque Emilian or Bolognese School.

It is difficult to distinguish the individual contributions by each Carracci in many early works in Bologna. For example, the frescoes on the story of Jason for the Palazzo Fava in Bologna (c. 1583-84); the frescoes are signed by Carracci and state that they all contributed. In 1585, Annibale completed an altarpiece of the Baptism of Christ for the church of San Gregorio in Bologna. In 1587, he painted the Assumption for the church of San Rocco in Reggio Emilia.

In 1587-88, Annibale is known to have have traveled to Parma and then Venice, where he met up with his brother Agostino. From 1589-92, the three Carracci complete the frescoes on the Founding of Rome for the Palazzo Magnani in Bologna. By 1593, Annibale completed by an altarpiece, Virgin on the throne with St John and St Catherine, working alongside with Lucio Massari. His Resurrection of Christ also dates from the year 1593. In 1592, he paints an Assumption for the Bonasoni chapel in San Francesco. During 1593-1594, all three Carracci work at frescoes in the Palazzo Sampieri in Bologna.