Madonna and Child with St Peter Martyr

Lorenzo Lotto’s popularity has experienced a revival in recent years, perhaps because of an inherent proto-surrealism which calls to mind modern artists. In this painting St Peter Martyr, represented as unusually frail with a large knife firmly embedded in his skull, presents to the Virgin and Child not a donor as Lotto painted it originally, but a young St John the Baptist, which is a feebly painted later addition.