St. Peter Delivered from Prison
Gustave Doré, 1866 · Acts 12:7
The passage
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 from his hands.
Acts 12:7
About this plate
A dark stair inside a prison. Peter climbs it at the centre, and behind him an angel — upright, calm, one arm out — climbs with him. On the steps below and to either side, guards lie sprawled where they fell asleep, one with his head back, one across the stone with a spear beside him. Through an opening at the right there is night sky and a moon.
Doré draws the guards more carefully than the angel. They are heavy, slack, entirely convincing as sleeping men, which is what makes the two upright figures moving through them look so strange.
The verse has an odd, brisk, almost domestic tone for a rescue: the angel smote Peter on the side, and raised him up, saying, Arise up quickly. And his chains fell off from his hands.
Smote him on the side. He had to be woken with a shove. The most striking sentence in the chapter is the one a few lines later, where Peter thinks he is dreaming and only works out that it is real once he is standing in the street.
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