16^th - 17^th century. Approx. Circa 1600-1610 years
Great Italian master, baroque artist of Bolognese school 
 Unrivalled painter, Guido Reni Italian Orthodox portrait  of    PENITENT SAINT PETER
 City of birth Calvenzano di Vergato, was born and died 1575-1642 years
Bologna the Penitent Saint Peter oil on canvas
 City of birth Calvenzano di Vergato, was born and died 1575-1642 years Bologna the Penitent Saint Peter oil on canvas

Biography: Guido Reni was a renowned Baroque painter in the seventeenth century. He was best known for his religious imagery and renderings of mythological subjects. He was also a prime master in the Bolognese School. Reni was trained by Denys Calvaert, and then probably in the Carracci workshop. He spent 1602-13 in Rome, where Domenichino had also arrived. Reni is reputed to have met (and quarreled with) Caravaggio there.

Item Overview, Description: Oil painting on canvas.
Dimensions: measurements note 27 1/8 by 23 1/4 in.; 69 by 59 cm.

Notes: Amongst Guido Reni's most enduringly popular images are his depictions of beautifully rendered bust-length, or near bust length, holy figures: various saints and apostles, the Magdalene, the Virgin and Christ himself. It was a genre that the artist essentially pioneered, paintings of heads that took as their subject not the physical, but the psychological, description of the figure portrayed, a kind of emotional portrait. All of Reni's biographers noted his skill at rendering heads in this manner, his ability to capture the much-admired depiction of affect, or physical description of sentiment in painting, whether in large compositions, or on a smaller scale. The ease with which he painted them was remarked upon.

Overview Paintings:  This Penitent Saint Peter is an example of just this type of painting. It depicts a half-length figure of the Apostle Peter, his head resting on his hand while he looks forlornly heavenward. Peter is shown without any of his usual attributes, and it is only through Reni's skillful depiction of the saint's distress at having denied Christ, are we able to determine which of the disciples is represented. His other hand is open across his bare breast, in a gesture both indicating his own guilt and asking for atonement. Reni's devout nature was often remarked upon by his contemporaries, and it was in such paintings as this he that allowed his own personal piety full scope to express itself. The loose and expressive manner of the brushstrokes, sacrificing none of the finished quality that Reni appreciated in his own work, suggests that the Saint Peter should date to fairly late in the artist's career, to the very late 1630's, as his personal style was become much looser than it had been previously.

Item Overview Paintings:  These  Penitent Saint Peter,  smooth and unified as the others, but with masterful strokes, full of a thousand niceties observed in their falling folds of skin,... nor with a certain sketchiness... did he depict with quick strokes their beards and hair, like the softest of feathers, but to the contrary he used the ground of the painting almost like a playing field, throwing himself against it with as much gusto as intelligence, done in a manner as no one before him had, the strands of hair twisting in different directions, deadened or enlivened, conforming to their place in the front or below, and on the top of which he placed the first and final highlights giving [the painting] its finish.

Guido Reni's was a favorite painter of the Borghese family, led then by Pope Paul V (Borghese). Reni also had a close relationship with Polish and Swedish Prince Wladyslaw VIV Vasa. Reni never married. He died in his home city of Bologna in 1642.

Fun Facts: Reni was known for his intense misogynistic personality and had a tendency to be biased toward female subjects in his paintings. Reni was an inveterate gambler. He would often work through commissions hurriedly to pay off debts. Reni feared the presence of women and even prevented female servants from entering his house.

Attention:  Late in life Guido Reni developed what 16^th - 17^th century critics called his second manner. The loose and expressive manner of the brushstrokes, character and manner writing of the painting, suggests that the Saint Peter should date to fairly late in the artist's career, as his personal style was become much looser than it had been previously. Exploring the character style of the painting I can say, manner of the brushstrokes of the artist corresponds Guido Reni. 
(The painting is not have a signature, and yet indicate on the handwriting master of Guido Reni)

If the picture has a signature her price = $800,000.00, until = $2, 500000.00