Comparable versions of this composition on panel exist in the Royal Collection, London, dating to circa 1625, and the Norton Simon Museum, Pasadena, California, dated to 1618. While the Royal Collection work shares with the present picture the sleeping guards in the foreground and the receding vaulted corridor, the Norton Simon panel displays a comparable vaulted prison interior with the deep two-point perspective.

The Liberation of Saint Peter was particularly popular in Steenwijck’s oeuvre, of which he painted more than twenty-five different versions, and alluded to the soul of man being liberated from the prison of the tomb. The subject comes from the Acts of the Apostles (12: 6-7): ‘the same night Peter was sleeping between two soldiers, bound with two chains: and the keepers before the door kept the prison. And, behold, the angel of the Lord came upon him, and a light shined in the prison: and he smote Peter on the side, and raised him up, saying, Arise up quickly. And his chains fell off his hands.’

A note on the provenance:
The present picture once formed part of the collection of the well-known art-critic, connoisseur, collector and painter Hendricus 'Henk' Peter Bremmer (1871-1956). Bremmer was among the most influential figures in the Dutch art world during the first half of the twentieth century. He wrote numerous publications focused on modern and contemporary art, such as the 1911 Vincent van Gogh; inleidende beschouwingen. An eloquent teacher, he encouraged his pupils to collect art and offered advice. His most successful apprentice in this field was, without doubt, Mrs. Hélène Kröller-Müller. Their alliance resulted in one of the largest private Dutch collections of modern art, among which many important drawings and paintings by van Gogh, now the core of the Kröller-Müller museum in Otterlo.