by Tom Gurney
Tom Gurney BSc (Hons) is an art history expert with over 20 years experience
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Email: tomgurney1@gmail.com / Phone: +44 7429 011000
Bacchus by Caravaggio: The Uffizi Painting
A young Bacchus sits close to the viewer, holding out a shallow cup of wine. The offer looks confident, but the details resist a single mood. His clothing is loose, the fruit is varied in ripeness, and the wine's surface seems delicately unstable. Caravaggio brings a classical god into the scale and immediacy of a person across a table. The result is seductive, theatrical and slightly uneasy at once.[1]
The Uffizi dates this Bacchus to about 1598 and places it among Caravaggio's early Roman pictures painted in a relatively clear light. It links the work to Cardinal Francesco Maria del Monte's patronage and to a later gift to the Medici family. Those records provide a firmer frame than attempts to diagnose the sitter or make every detail stand for one concealed message.[1]
Caravaggio in context
The Cardsharps
c.1595Calling of Saint Matthew
1599–1600Supper at Emmaus
1601At a Glance
- ArtistMichelangelo Merisi, called Caravaggio (1571–1610)
- TitleBacchus (Bacco)
- Dateabout 1598, according to the Uffizi[1]
- Mediumoil on canvas[1]
- Dimensions95 × 85 cm[1]
- CollectionGallerie degli Uffizi, Florence, inventory 1890 no. 5312[1]
- Early patronageassociated with Cardinal Francesco Maria del Monte[1]
- Subjectthe classical god of wine, shown as a youthful half-length figure offering a cup[1]
Contents
- What the Painting Shows
- The Invitation and the Role of the Viewer
- Fruit, Wine and Close Observation
- Costume, Pose and Classical Models
- Del Monte, the Medici and the Painting's History
- Dating and Attribution
- What Infrared Study Adds to the Making of Bacchus
- Bacchus, “Sick Bacchus” and Other Early Pictures
- How to Read Without Overclaiming
- Frequently Asked Questions
Look closer: Bacchus
Caravaggio makes the wine offering, fruit and costume work together. These details bring the invitation and the carefully arranged tabletop into focus.
123Details from Bacchus
Select a detail image to open the full-size gallery, then use the arrows to compare views.
The offered wine
Bacchus extends a shallow glass by its stem. The dark wine is seen against his pale hand and white drapery.
Vine leaves in the hair
Leaves, grapes and flowers form an uneven wreath above the softly lit face.
The fruit and glass
Fruit, leaves and a second vessel crowd the lower edge, adding texture to the otherwise restrained setting.
What the Painting Shows
Bacchus sits behind a ledge covered with a white cloth. He wears a pale garment that leaves much of his chest and right shoulder exposed, and a wreath of leaves and grapes crowns his dark hair. His left hand extends a cup of wine towards us; his right holds a dark bow near his chest. At the front is a basket or bowl of fruit, with grapes, apples and other produce in different states of freshness. A large glass vessel stands near the figure.[1][8]
The picture does not present a god in an Olympian landscape. There is little setting to compete with the body, cloth, fruit and glass. At 95 by 85 centimetres, it is a picture made for relatively close looking. The Uffizi places it in a series of early half-length figures painted “in chiaro,” in a clear manner, alongside works such as Boy with a Basket of Fruit and Boy Bitten by a Lizard. That connection is useful because it corrects the assumption that all Caravaggio paintings depend on deep darkness.[1]
The figure's pose is organised around an offer. He does not pour wine or drink it himself; he presents a filled cup beyond the ledge. This makes the viewer's position unusually important. We are close enough to imagine receiving it, but we cannot know whether the invitation is gracious, playful, provocative or a mixture of all three. The uncertainty is one of the painting's strengths.
The Invitation and the Role of the Viewer
Many portraits look at us; this figure addresses us through an object. The cup moves toward the plane of the picture, while the fruit and cloth form a barrier and a bridge. The barrier is a table edge we cannot cross. The bridge is the familiar action of offering a drink. Caravaggio gives a mythological subject the social form of a meeting between two people.
The figure's relaxed body and direct presentation suggest a performance. A person poses as Bacchus, complete with wreath and drapery, but the effect is not a costume study detached from the viewer. We see the physical effort of holding the cup and the texture of what sits before him. The god is made from a model, materials and a set of gestures rather than from a distant ideal.
This does not establish who the model was. The Uffizi's object record names no sitter. Claims that a particular friend, pupil or self-portrait is shown here need evidence beyond a resemblance to another face. The painting can evoke an individual without granting us a secure modern identity for him.
Fruit, Wine and Close Observation
Caravaggio gives the still life a presence almost equal to the figure. The Uffizi singles out the basket of fruit and the offered wine as demonstrations of naturalistic painting. Its catalogue notes that critics have interpreted them in terms of conviviality, friendship and a Horatian invitation to moderation. These are interpretive possibilities, not an inscription that solves every fruit.[1]
Look first at differences in surface. Round fruit catches the light differently from the thin skin of grapes. Leaves curl and darken; glass reveals and distorts what is behind it. The white cloth holds the arrangement together while allowing small shadows to register. The effect is not a generic symbol of abundance. It is a group of particular things placed near a particular person.
The various degrees of ripeness invite thoughts about pleasure and time. Ripe produce is desirable but perishable, and wine belongs to celebration as well as excess. A viewer may see an invitation to enjoy the present; another may see a reminder that sensory pleasures do not last. The two readings need not cancel each other. The visible evidence supports both more readily than a claim that one piece of fruit has one compulsory hidden translation.
The cup's surface and the glass vessel also invite close looking at Caravaggio's method. He renders transparent and reflective materials by painting what light does to them, rather than outlining a simple solid form. This painterly attention makes an object central to the action: the wine must seem worth accepting if the invitation is to have force.
Even the cup resists one settled account of what is seen. Lapucci reads the fine pale lines within it as foam and movement in newly poured wine; Sybille Ebert-Schifferer has suggested that apparent ripples may instead be grooves in the glass.[7][8] Both readings attend to real marks. Their disagreement is more useful than declaring the wine definitely trembling because Bacchus is drunk. The image is painted to make glass, liquid and reflected light hard to prise apart, and the uncertainty belongs to the viewer's encounter with the offer.
Costume, Pose and Classical Models
Bacchus's wreath, bare skin, drapery and wine identify him as the classical god. Yet the Uffizi also describes the figure as recalling antique sculptural models, particularly images of Antinous. Its catalogue reports Mina Gregori's interpretation of the picture as a sensual vision of antiquity. That is a scholarly reading, useful for explaining why a half-length model can carry the authority of classical art without imitating a specific statue line by line.[1]
The pose balances stillness and contact. The body looks arranged for display, while the hand crosses towards the viewer. This is a small but consequential shift: a mythological image becomes an encounter. It also makes the figure's apparent inebriation difficult to reduce to caricature. The Uffizi describes a stunned expression associated with drink, but the painting gives that state beauty and vulnerability as well as humour.[1]
The early Roman setting matters here. Caravaggio worked for patrons who could recognise classical references, poetry and cultivated play. The picture could be enjoyed as a demonstration of painting from life, a response to antiquity and a social invitation. No surviving label on the canvas limits it to only one of these roles.
Del Monte, the Medici and the Painting's History
The Uffizi associates Bacchus with Cardinal Francesco Maria del Monte, an important early patron of Caravaggio. According to its collection record, del Monte gave this painting and Caravaggio's Medusa to Ferdinando I de' Medici on the occasion of the marriage of Ferdinando's son Cosimo II in 1608. That later gift helps explain the painting's Medici history without proving the exact day it was first painted.[1]
An Uffizi-supplied description of the work also points to a Bacchus in inventories of the Medici villa at Artimino beginning in 1609. It treats that early appearance as support for the del Monte gift, rather than as a record of Caravaggio at work in 1608.[6] Art historian Elena Fumagalli proposed identifying that unattributed entry with the present canvas. Medici records of 1620 and 1638 also list a Bacchus without naming its painter; the later description gives a figure holding wine and crowned with grapes and vine leaves. Those words fit the visible subject more closely than the bare title in 1609, but they do not turn the earlier entry into an autograph label.[8][9]
There is a competing route into the collection. A document of 1618 records the purchase of a painting called Bacchus in Rome for Grand Duke Cosimo II; some scholars have identified that purchase with the Uffizi canvas. The purchase record does not name Caravaggio, however, and a painting already at Artimino in 1609 could not have first entered the Medici collection through a purchase nine years later. These proposals depend on identifying different short records with one surviving object. The Uffizi's 1608 gift account is the museum's current position; the inventory and purchase arguments explain why the precise transfer remains a matter of research. None of these ownership dates fixes the year Caravaggio painted it.[1][6][8]
Its modern visibility has its own story. The Uffizi records that the canvas was found in its storerooms in 1913 and attributed to Caravaggio by Roberto Longhi. Matteo Marangoni, who drew attention to it, initially published it as a copy in 1916 while reporting Longhi's view that it was autograph; after restoration he accepted the attribution in 1922. “Rediscovered” in this context refers to recognition and renewed study of a work already in the collection, not to a newly painted or newly excavated object. The initial disagreement also shows why the present secure attribution should not be projected uncritically onto its first modern appearance.[1][8]
The museum's current inventory is 1890 no. 5312. Inventory identifiers are useful because the title Bacchus is not unique. Caravaggio's Young Sick Bacchus at the Galleria Borghese is another picture, with a different composition and history.[1][2]
Dating and Attribution
The Uffizi dates this painting to approximately 1598. A historic Fondazione Roberto Longhi catalogue entry gives 1589, a significantly earlier year, while also recording alternative ranges of 1592–93 and 1597–98. The difference should not be concealed by writing a precise date without a source. The current owning museum's record is the basis for the date here; the older catalogue shows how much the proposed chronology of Caravaggio's early works has varied.[1][3]
An approximate date is appropriate for an early work without a single dated commission document on the canvas. It places Bacchus in the Roman period of music, fruit and half-length figures, before the Contarelli Chapel side paintings of 1599–1600. It does not mean that every related painting can be arranged in an exact month-by-month sequence.[1][4]
The attribution to Caravaggio is secure in the Uffizi's present catalogue. That is a different question from the precise date, the sitter's identity or the interpretation of the fruit. Separating these questions keeps a real object from becoming a collection of equally certain sounding guesses.
What Infrared Study Adds to the Making of Bacchus
A research abstract by Roberto Bellucci, Cecilia Frosinini and colleagues at the Opificio delle Pietre Dure, Italy's optics institute and Berlin's Gemäldegalerie challenges the idea that Caravaggio never drew on a support. Their high-resolution infrared work found traces of preparatory drawing in the Uffizi Bacchus, along with selected other paintings on relatively light grounds. They cautiously propose that some marks may involve transfer from a cartoon and others freehand elaboration. This is a report of examined marks, not proof that a particular paper cartoon survives or that every contour was transferred.[5]
The result changes how a viewer can understand the apparently effortless cup, fruit and posed body. Their relationships might look like an instant captured from life, yet an underlying stage of placement may have helped coordinate them. The researchers also explain why earlier investigations, often directed toward incisions and X-rays, could miss marks best seen with improved infrared methods. As the abstract does not publish a full mapped account of every Bacchus line, this page should not invent a hidden drawing beneath a particular grape or hand.[5]
A separate technical examination by Roberta Lapucci gives more object-specific observations. She describes a reddish-brown preparation beneath the painting and incised marks, including one along the horizontal axis of Bacchus's eyes. Her study also identifies brushed outlines around parts of the hands and arms. These are different kinds of evidence: an incision is a mark cut into a layer, whereas an infrared trace may be a drawn or painted line. Together they make the picture's arrangement more deliberate and varied than a simple account of painting a model directly, without planning, would allow.[7]
The support itself is unusual. Lapucci identifies the original canvas as a fine Flemish damask, woven with a diamond pattern. Its edges were later cut back on three sides, and the surviving image is not centred evenly within the present frame. She considers it probable that the painting was originally larger. That is an inference from physical condition, not a recoverable plan for exactly what appeared beyond today's edges. The canvas was also lined in a later treatment; Lapucci connects some puckering and damaged paint to heat during that intervention. These facts limit how confidently a viewer can reconstruct the first appearance from the current rectangle.[7]
Lapucci's radiographs and infrared images show revisions in the left hand holding the wine: fingers visible in technical images were covered in the final image. She also reports changes to the table edge, shoulder outlines and glass stem. Her X-ray reading suggests that the cup first had a simpler V-shaped stem before the two glass spheres were added. She also finds that the grey table plane was introduced late, over drapery that had run farther toward the bottom of the canvas. The fruit bowl was reserved as a space before its vessel, fruit and leaves were built in stages. These findings matter to a viewer because the offer of wine depends on the relationship between hand, cup and ledge. Caravaggio adjusted those relationships while making the picture; the visible image is the selected result, not a single untouched pose.[7]
The same examination records losses and extensive retouching, particularly near the edges and in parts of the figure. This is a reason to avoid treating every present surface effect as untouched evidence of the original handling. Lapucci describes the glass carafe as painted in thin, transparent dark layers that barely register in an X-ray, while the cup's wine uses alternating dense and more transparent reds. Fine dark curves and narrow light lines make the wine look as though it has just moved and briefly foamed. By contrast, thicker white paint catches on the leaves, clothing and rim of the cup. The two vessels therefore demonstrate different solutions to the problem of representing liquid and glass; the drink's apparent movement is made from carefully differentiated paint.[7]
Lapucci also observes that the cast shadows of the carafe and fruit bowl travel in different directions, and reads several light sources in the figure, cup and vessel. Those differences make a single frozen instant an inadequate explanation of the arrangement. They do not prove a particular optical apparatus or a fixed number of posing sessions. The final composition joins observations into one convincing encounter, even where its light and working sequence are more complex than that encounter first appears.[7]
Within the carafe, Lapucci and Anna Mazzinghi identified a small reflected figure in multispectral infrared images, following earlier observations by Matteo Marangoni. They proposed that it might show Caravaggio at work, possibly with a brush and canvas. The imaging supports the presence of a figure, but the identification and the objects in its hands remain interpretations; Lapucci called for higher-resolution examination of the area. Surface retouching helps explain why the reflection is difficult to distinguish by eye.[7]
Bacchus, “Sick Bacchus” and Other Early Pictures
The Borghese picture conventionally called Sick Bacchus shows a pale figure crowned with leaves, with fruit and a different bodily turn. The museum uses the title Self-Portrait as Bacchus, known as Sick Bacchus. That naming records a longstanding identification, but it does not make the Uffizi Bacchus a second state of the same canvas. Their owner records and images distinguish them.[1][2]
The distinction also matters when reading an early written source. Giovanni Baglione's 1642 biography mentions a Bacchus associated with Caravaggio's mirror portraits, but does not give today's museum inventory numbers. The Borghese catalogue traces an argument over whether he meant its Sick Bacchus or the Uffizi painting: Roberto Longhi favoured the Florence work, whereas the Borghese catalogue says most later scholars identify the passage with its Rome canvas. Baglione's words therefore cannot, by themselves, establish that the Uffizi figure is Caravaggio's self-portrait or identify its model.[2]
The Uffizi also relates Bacchus to Boy with a Basket of Fruit, Boy Bitten by a Lizard and Basket of Fruit. These works show Caravaggio thinking through what a painted fruit, vessel or human gesture can do. In Bacchus, the still life is not isolated from the figure; it sets up the encounter between sitter and viewer.[1]
For the wider career, see the artist guide, the paintings directory and the painting technique guide. The next public Roman commission can be followed through the Calling of Saint Matthew.
How to Read Without Overclaiming
Sensuality, intoxication, hospitality and mortality are all plausible threads in this painting. The Uffizi's account names some of these readings and identifies the scholars who proposed them. The image itself provides the basis for discussion: offered wine, youthful flesh, fruit in changing condition and a pose that meets the viewer.[1]
Other claims demand more. A medical diagnosis from the face, a definite name for the model, or a coded meaning for every blemish would require evidence not supplied by the museum record. Close looking can be precise without claiming certainty where the historical record is silent. That is especially important for a painter whose reputation invites dramatic stories to fill gaps.
Explore the Caravaggio collection
| Name | Date | Type |
|---|---|---|
| Adoration of the Shepherds by Caravaggio: The Messina Nativity | 1608–09; precise order relative to Resurrection of Lazarus remains unresolved | Artwork |
| Amor Victorious by Caravaggio | 1601–02 in the Berlin owner record | Artwork |
| Bacchus by Caravaggio: The Uffizi Painting | about 1598, according to the Uffizi | Artwork |
| Basket of Fruit by Caravaggio | after 1597, probably around the turn of the seventeenth century, according to the Ambrosiana | Artwork |
| Boy Bitten by a Lizard: Caravaggio's London Painting | about 1594–95 in the National Gallery's current catalogue; URL suffix “1596” is inherited | Artwork |
| Boy Bitten by a Lizard: The Florence Version Attributed to Caravaggio | disputed; Longhi's catalogue record preserves historical 1592–93 and other proposed ranges, including c.1597 | Artwork |
| Boy Peeling Fruit by Caravaggio: The Royal Collection Painting | about 1592–93 in the owner's current exhibition record | Artwork |
| Boy Peeling Fruit in Florence: A Derivation from Caravaggio | — | Artwork |
| Boy with a Basket of Fruit by Caravaggio | about 1595 in the Galleria Borghese catalogue | Artwork |
| Caravaggio Paintings in Rome: Churches, Museums and a Practical Route | — | Guide |
| Caravaggio Quotes: What the Documents Actually Record | — | Guide |
| Caravaggio's Lute Player: The Del Monte Painting Once Shown at the Met | about 1596–97 in the Met catalogue | Artwork |
| Caravaggio's Painting Technique: Grounds, Incisions, Revisions and Light | — | Guide |
| Christ at the Column by Caravaggio: The Rouen Flagellation | c.1606 in the owner caption; owner prose gives 1606–07 | Artwork |
| Christ on the Mount of Olives by Caravaggio: The Lost Berlin Painting | — | Artwork |
| Conversion on the Way to Damascus by Caravaggio | about 1601 in the Roma Capitale church record | Artwork |
| Crowning with Thorns by Caravaggio: The Vienna Painting | about 1603 in the 2019 KHM record; “1607” is an inherited URL suffix | Artwork |
| Crowning with Thorns in Prato: Attributed to Caravaggio | about 1602–03 in the collection presentation | Artwork |
| David with the Head of Goliath by Caravaggio: The Borghese Painting | 1606–07 or 1609–10 in the Galleria Borghese catalogue; the later Naples period is favoured by many scholars, while the owner keeps the question open | Artwork |
| David with the Head of Goliath by Caravaggio: The Prado Painting | about 1600 in Prado material; “1599” survives only in the legacy URL | Artwork |
| David with the Head of Goliath by Caravaggio: The Vienna Painting | about 1600–01 in the KHM's 2019 exhibition record; “1607” is a legacy route label | Artwork |
| Did Caravaggio Make Drawings? What Survives and What Paintings Reveal | — | Guide |
| Ecce Homo: Caravaggio's Madrid Rediscovery and the Genoa Painting | — | Artwork |
| John the Baptist in Caravaggio's Paintings: A Guide to the Different Versions | — | Artwork |
| Judith Beheading Holofernes by Caravaggio | beginning of the seventeenth century in the owning museum's account; about 1599–1600 in the Kimbell's 2025 loan label; around 1602 in one specialist catalogue | Artwork |
| Jupiter, Neptune and Pluto: Caravaggio's Ludovisi Ceiling | about 1597; the archive connects the work with Cardinal del Monte's 1597 commission | Artwork |
| Madonna and Child with Saint Anne by Caravaggio: The Palafrenieri Altarpiece | 1605 in the Galleria Borghese object field; completed and delivered by 8 April 1606 | Artwork |
| Madonna of Loreto by Caravaggio: The Pilgrims at Sant'Agostino | broadly c.1604–06; institutional records differ slightly in their starting year | Artwork |
| Madonna of the Rosary by Caravaggio: The Vienna Altarpiece | around 1603 in the Kunsthistorisches Museum's object record | Artwork |
| Martha and Mary Magdalene by Caravaggio: The Detroit Painting | about 1598 in the Detroit Institute of Arts record | Artwork |
| Medusa by Caravaggio: The Uffizi Painted Shield | 1596–98 in the Uffizi's virtual exhibition; specialist research reports the shield delivered to the Medici wardrobe by 7 September 1598 | Artwork |
| Narcissus, Attributed to Caravaggio | dependent on attribution; the Zeri catalogue gives a broad 1610–50 range under Spadarino | Artwork |
| Nativity with Saint Francis and Saint Lawrence: Caravaggio's Missing Painting | somewhere in 1600–09 in the parliamentary report; a specific 1609 execution and place remain debated | Artwork |
| Penitent Mary Magdalene by Caravaggio | 1597 in the owner's catalogue, during Caravaggio's early Roman activity | Artwork |
| Portrait of a Courtesan: Caravaggio's Lost Berlin Portrait | Berlin's data field says c.1590, while its own text compares a Caravaggio work of c.1598; precise date unresolved | Artwork |
| Portrait of Alof de Wignacourt and His Page by Caravaggio | — | Artwork |
| Portrait of Fra Antonio Martelli? Caravaggio's Pitti Knight of Malta | 1608 in the Restituzioni object heading; within Caravaggio's Malta period | Artwork |
| Portrait of Maffeo Barberini: The Seated Corsini Painting | c.1596–97 in the national catalogue | Artwork |
| Portrait of Monsignor Maffeo Barberini: Caravaggio's Newly Acquired Painting | around the late 1590s / age thirty; “1598” in the inherited address is approximate, not an exact document date | Artwork |
| Portrait of Pope Paul V: A Caravaggio Attribution and a Borghese Copy | — | Artwork |
| Prints After Caravaggio: Who Made Them and What They Show | — | Guide |
| Reclining Saint John the Baptist: A Disputed Caravaggio Attribution | often proposed for the artist's final years; the later museum list does not give a precise year. | Artwork |
| Rest on the Flight into Egypt by Caravaggio | about 1597 in the owner's catalogue | Artwork |
| Saint Catherine of Alexandria by Caravaggio: The Thyssen Painting | about 1598–99 in the Museo Nacional Thyssen-Bornemisza catalogue | Artwork |
| Saint Francis in Meditation by Caravaggio: The Cremona Painting | 1603–06 in the owner account; c.1605–06 in a KHM exhibition caption | Artwork |
| Saint Francis in Prayer: Caravaggio's Carpineto Painting | 1606 in a 2016–17 exhibition work list | Artwork |
| Saint Francis of Assisi in Ecstasy by Caravaggio | c.1595–96 in the owner wall text | Artwork |
| Saint Jerome in Meditation: Caravaggio's Montserrat Painting | 1605 in the owner record; an owner publication reports scholarship placing it about 1605–06 | Artwork |
| Saint Jerome Writing by Caravaggio: The Borghese Painting | c.1606 in the owner catalogue; the “1605” URL suffix is inherited | Artwork |
| Saint Jerome Writing by Caravaggio: The Malta Painting | around 1607–08; foundation dates Malaspina's commission to 1608 | Artwork |
| Saint John in the Wilderness at Toledo Cathedral | exact 1598 not established by the cited cathedral account. | Artwork |
| Saint John the Baptist at Galleria Corsini, Rome | about 1606 in the national record; older proposals ranged from the late 1590s onward. | Artwork |
| Saint John the Baptist at the Capitoline Museums, Rome | 1602. | Artwork |
| Saint John the Baptist at the Galleria Borghese | 1609–10 in the current Borghese record. | Artwork |
| Saint John the Baptist at the Spring: The Bonello Painting in Malta | early seventeenth century in the institutional account; a precise 1608 is not established there. | Artwork |
| Saint Matthew and the Angel: Caravaggio's Lost First Altarpiece | — | Artwork |
| Salome Receives the Head of John the Baptist: Caravaggio's London Painting | about 1609–10, likely late Naples period in the Gallery's account | Artwork |
| Salome with the Head of John the Baptist: Caravaggio's Madrid Painting | — | Artwork |
| Sleeping Cupid by Caravaggio: The Painting Made in Malta | about 1608, Malta period | Artwork |
| Still Life with Fruit on a Stone Ledge: Is It by Caravaggio? | — | Artwork |
| Supper at Emmaus (1606): Caravaggio's Brera Painting | — | Artwork |
| The Annunciation by Caravaggio in Nancy | c.1607–10 in the collection record; 1608–10 in the museum's restoration account | Artwork |
| The Basel Saint John the Baptist: Once Labelled Caravaggio, Now Maíno | about 1608–10 in that schedule, rather than the legacy URL's 1600. | Artwork |
| The Beheading of Saint John the Baptist by Caravaggio | about 1608; installed in the Oratory on 29 August 1608 | Artwork |
| The Burial of Saint Lucy by Caravaggio in Syracuse | 1608, during Caravaggio's Syracuse stay | Artwork |
| The Calling of Saint Matthew by Caravaggio | about 1599–1600 | Artwork |
| The Calling of Saints Peter and Andrew by Caravaggio | about 1602–04 in the Trust's object text | Artwork |
| The Cardsharps by Caravaggio | about 1596–97 in the Kimbell's current object record | Artwork |
| The Conversion of Saint Paul: Caravaggio's Odescalchi Panel | commissioned in 1600; painted around 1600–01 | Artwork |
| The Crucifixion of Saint Andrew by Caravaggio | 1606–07 | Artwork |
| The Crucifixion of Saint Peter by Caravaggio | about 1601 | Artwork |
| The Death of the Virgin by Caravaggio | commissioned 1601; completed late 1605 or early 1606, according to the Louvre | Artwork |
| The Denial of Saint Peter by Caravaggio | 1610 | Artwork |
| The Doria Pamphilj Saint John the Baptist: A Second Youth with a Ram | linked compositionally to the Capitoline 1602 picture; an exact production year for this canvas is not established by the owner pages used here. | Artwork |
| The Entombment of Christ by Caravaggio: The Vatican Deposition | about 1600–04 in Vatican Museums publication material | Artwork |
| The Flagellation of Christ by Caravaggio: The Capodimonte Altarpiece | around 1607, in the first Naples period | Artwork |
| The Fortune Teller by Caravaggio: The Louvre Version and Its Roman Counterpart | — | Artwork |
| The Holy Family with the Infant Saint John the Baptist by Caravaggio | early 1600s in the Met catalogue; no more exact owner date asserted here | Artwork |
| The Incredulity of Saint Thomas by Caravaggio | about 1601 in the SPSG presentation | Artwork |
| The Inspiration of Saint Matthew by Caravaggio | usually 1602; also catalogued 1602–03, for the installed final altarpiece | Artwork |
| The Lute Player by Caravaggio: The Hermitage Painting | about 1596 in the Hermitage collection publication; the Hermitage Friends restoration page gives about 1595–96 | Artwork |
| The Magdalen in Ecstasy: Caravaggio, Copies and a Disputed Original | — | Artwork |
| The Martyrdom of Saint Matthew by Caravaggio | 1599–1600; unveiled with The Calling in 1600 | Artwork |
| The Martyrdom of Saint Ursula by Caravaggio | — | Artwork |
| The Musicians by Caravaggio | 1597 | Artwork |
| The Resurrection of Lazarus by Caravaggio in Messina | 1609; delivered 10 June 1609 in the owner account | Artwork |
| The Sacrifice of Isaac by Bartolomeo Cavarozzi: A Former Caravaggio Attribution | about 1615–17 in the Nicholas Hall catalogue; “1598” is an inherited URL label, not the accepted date | Artwork |
| The Sacrifice of Isaac by Caravaggio: The Uffizi Painting | about 1603 in the Uffizi catalogue | Artwork |
| The Seven Works of Mercy by Caravaggio | 1606–07, according to the Pio Monte | Artwork |
| The Supper at Emmaus by Caravaggio: The London Painting | 1601 | Artwork |
| The Taking of Christ by Caravaggio | 1602 | Artwork |
| The Toulouse *Judith Beheading Holofernes*: A Caravaggio Attribution Debate | c.1606–07 if identified with the recorded Naples work; that identification is debated | Artwork |
| Young Sick Bacchus by Caravaggio | about 1595 in the Galleria Borghese catalogue | Artwork |
| Youth with a Ram: Why Caravaggio's Saint John Looks So Unusual | — | Artwork |
No matching pages found.
Discussion
Share a close observation about Bacchus by Caravaggio or a source that clarifies its history.
Which detail changes your reading?
Is there a collection record or document worth comparing?
What remains uncertain?
Join the Conversation
Frequently Asked Questions
Where is Caravaggio's Bacchus?
It belongs to the Uffizi Galleries in Florence. The owner catalogue identifies it as inventory 1890 no. 5312. Check the museum's current display information before visiting, since room arrangements may change.[1]
When was it painted?
Who is the young man?
He is shown in the role of Bacchus, the classical god of wine. The Uffizi's object record does not identify a named sitter, so proposals about the model should be treated as hypotheses.[1]
What does the fruit mean?
The fruit makes the meal tangible and has invited readings about pleasure, friendship, moderation and time. There is no single documented key that assigns every item one fixed meaning.[1]
Is this the same as Sick Bacchus?
No. Sick Bacchus, also titled Self-Portrait as Bacchus, is a separate painting in the Galleria Borghese, Rome.[2]
References
- Gallerie degli Uffizi, Bacchus, inventory 1890 no. 5312.
- Galleria Borghese, Self-Portrait as Bacchus, known as Sick Bacchus.
- Fondazione Roberto Longhi, historical Bacco catalogue record.
- Roma Capitale, Contarelli Chapel programme.
- Roberto Bellucci, Cecilia Frosinini et al., “Caravaggio's underdrawing: A 'Quest for the Grail'?” in National Gallery conference abstracts, 2009, pp. 38–39.
- Uffizi Gallery, The adolescent Bacchus, collection description on Google Arts & Culture.
- Roberta Lapucci and Anna Mazzinghi, technical examination of the Uffizi Bacchus and the reflection in the carafe, in Nuove scoperte sul Caravaggio, 2009.
- Federico Giannini and Ilaria Baratta, “Caravaggio's enigmatic Bacchus, the early masterpiece at the Uffizi”, Finestre sull'Arte, 2023, discussing Fumagalli's Artimino identification and the alternative 1618 purchase proposal.
- Valeska von Rosen, Caravaggio und die Grenzen des Darstellbaren, 3rd ed., De Gruyter, 2021, chapter I.1.1, on the Artimino inventory sequence and debated 1618 purchase.
- Annotated image source: Wikimedia Commons, File:Bacchus (by Michelangelo Merisi da Caravaggio) – Galleria degli Uffizi, Florence.jpg, high-resolution reproduction used for the annotated details.
