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
The Beheading of Saint John the Baptist by Caravaggio
The execution takes place low in a broad, dark courtyard. John lies on the ground; an executioner bends over him, while a woman holds out a dish for the severed head. Other figures watch or assist. Much of the huge canvas is left to wall, doorway and shadow. Caravaggio makes the killing feel neither remote nor theatrically crowded: the space around it is large enough to make its isolation more disturbing.[1][2]
Painted around 1608 for the Oratory of St John in Valletta, Malta, the work remains in St John's Co-Cathedral. The Cathedral Foundation calls it Caravaggio's largest painting and identifies it as signed. The signature, placed in the painted flow of blood, has invited several interpretations; the fact of its presence should not be turned into a confession of the artist's intentions.[1][3][4]
Caravaggio in context
The Cardsharps
c.1595Calling of Saint Matthew
1599–1600Supper at Emmaus
1601At a Glance
- ArtistMichelangelo Merisi, called Caravaggio (1571–1610)
- TitleThe Beheading of Saint John the Baptist (Decollazione di San Giovanni Battista)
- Dateabout 1608; installed in the Oratory on 29 August 1608[1][2]
- Mediumoil on canvas[1]
- Dimensionsapproximately 360 cm high × 520 cm wide; the Co-Cathedral lists 520 × 360 cm in width-first order[1]
- Original and present settingOratory of St John the Baptist, St John's Co-Cathedral, Valletta[1][2]
- Subjectthe execution of John the Baptist[1][5]
- Distinctive featurea signature incorporated near the blood from John's neck[3][4]
Contents
- What Happens in the Painting?
- The Executioners and Witnesses
- Why So Much Empty Space?
- Light, Scale and the Oratory
- The Signature and What It Can Tell Us
- Caravaggio in the Order of St John
- The Painting's Later Setting and Conservation Context
- Other Images of John the Baptist
- Frequently Asked Questions
Look closer: The Beheading of Saint John the Baptist
The vast architecture leaves the execution small but unavoidable. These close views move from the prisoners and servant to the figures gathered around John.
123Details from The Beheading of Saint John the Baptist
Select a detail image to open the full-size gallery, then use the arrows to compare views.
The prison window
A prisoner looks out from the dark window at the right, separated from the action by the thick wall.
The execution group
The executioner bends over John and presses him down; the red cloth carries the eye across the ground.
The waiting basin
At the left, the waiting woman bends toward a broad basin while nearby figures watch from beneath the arch.
What Happens in the Painting?
John has been forced to the ground. The executioner is finishing the beheading, while a woman bends forward with a dish. Another figure gives direction, and an older woman reacts nearby. Two small faces look through a barred opening in the wall. The action is concentrated in one part of the canvas, but the larger architecture holds it in a stark public space.[1][3]
The Gospel story involves Herod, Herodias and her daughter, whose request leads to John's death. The painting does not try to show the banquet and the execution together. It chooses the later, irreversible act. A viewer who knows the story can identify the dish's purpose, but the painting makes the bodily consequences of the request impossible to avoid.[5]
The low placement of the group is unusual in a canvas more than five metres wide. Caravaggio gives a great deal of painted space to the courtyard, then makes the figures seem trapped within it. Our eye can move into the emptiness but returns to the exposed body and the small gestures around it. The event is not swallowed by spectacle; it is made more severe by the amount of room around it.
The violence is caught between actions. David M. Stone points out the large sword already lying on the ground and the executioner's movement toward a smaller blade to complete the severing. The dish waits before it receives anything. Reading those details in sequence prevents the scene from becoming a generic image of a completed beheading: Caravaggio holds the viewer at the point when the first blow has been struck but the terrible task is not yet finished.[4]
The Executioners and Witnesses
The executioner is close to John, and his task is physical. The man beside him appears to direct or supervise the act. The woman with the dish is ready to receive the head, while the older woman responds differently from the people carrying out the order. These roles are visible in action and posture. The picture does not require us to name every participant in order to read its human conflict.
The two onlookers at the window are far smaller than the main group. Their distance matters. They can see the execution but cannot enter its space, much as a visitor to the Oratory witnesses the painted event without changing it. Caravaggio repeats the experience of watching at different scales within the painting.
The figures do not form an orderly procession around a saintly centre. Several appear busy with an assigned task, and others show a response to that task. The contrast between routine action and horror gives the work much of its force. A viewer can follow who acts, who observes and who recoils without a caption printed into the scene.
The woman carrying the dish is often named Salome because the Gospel says Herodias's daughter asked for John's head on a platter. The identification is less secure in this particular picture. Stone describes her as a serving girl and observes that her plain dress and apron do not strongly identify her as the daughter, though he does not rule that reading out. The painted role is clear; the individual's name is an interpretation.[4][5]
Why So Much Empty Space?
The wall, arch and large dark areas are not neglected background. They make the scene feel confined within an institution and leave the human group exposed on the ground. The scale of the architecture gives the body no shelter. It also slows down the viewer's reading: the painting cannot be taken in as a single tight knot of faces.
The width visible today is not necessarily the width Caravaggio gave the composition. Giorgio Bonsanti, writing from the Opificio delle Pietre Dure's 1997–99 restoration, reported that radiographic traces of the original stretcher indicate a loss of roughly 20 centimetres at the left edge. Stone cites the conservation catalogue's estimate of 18–20 centimetres. The figures may therefore have been somewhat less displaced from the centre than they appear now. The present expanse of architecture is still a designed part of the picture, but its exact balance should not be described as a perfectly preserved 1608 decision. The suggested date of trimming, possibly during later Oratory alterations, is a hypothesis rather than a documented event.[4][10]
The broad composition suits an Oratory wall. Its width allows the execution to be seen within a larger environment, and the low figures can meet a standing viewer near eye level. The room's devotional purpose is part of the work's meaning. The Oratory was associated with the Order of St John; its account says the painting was installed on the feast of the Beheading, 29 August 1608.[2]
That placement asks a visitor to consider the Order's patron saint through a difficult image of his death. The painting is neither a general court scene nor a modern museum canvas made for an empty white wall. Its architectural surroundings, liturgical association and extreme width shape how it addresses viewers.[1][2]
The Oratory's use makes the chosen moment more specific. Stone traces the Maltese Confraternita della Misericordia to a group affiliated with Rome's confraternity of Saint John the Beheaded. Its members accompanied prisoners condemned to execution. The same Maltese hall later served the Order's Sguardium, or criminal tribunal, as well as novices' instruction, worship and investitures. John's execution would therefore have met viewers who knew both religious care for the condemned and the Order's own judicial procedures. This context helps explain the subject's force without claiming that Caravaggio painted an actual Maltese prisoner or copied a local prison yard.[4]
Light, Scale and the Oratory
Light isolates parts of the action rather than illuminating every corner equally. It finds John's pale body, the bent executioner and the woman holding the dish, while the upper wall remains sombre. The distance between the low lit bodies and high dark architecture is as important as the familiar contrast of bright flesh against shadow.
Bonsanti's account of the Florence treatment gives that darkness a material explanation. He describes a reddish ground allowed to remain visible through thin, selective paint, sometimes with only a few strokes marking a form. Cleaning restored a more graduated sense of depth to areas that had appeared almost uniformly dark; steps and stonework by the principal doorway became easier to distinguish. This does not mean that every dark passage was originally bright or that cleaning uncovered a hidden second scene. It means that Caravaggio used the prepared canvas as part of the visible picture, and that the condition of later surface layers affected how readers perceived its architecture.[10]
A later technical investigation adds a narrower observation about planning. In a 2023 report, Maria Letizia Amadori and Gianluca Poldi described preliminary findings of drawing traces and adjustments, including a prison window apparently made larger during painting, perhaps to improve perspective. Their reported result belongs to the Malta Beheading, while the same report discusses different findings for the cathedral's Saint Jerome. The revised window is useful evidence against imagining the entire architecture as one unaltered first gesture; the preliminary report does not supply a complete map of every change in the canvas.[11]
The Co-Cathedral's current record lists the painting as 520 × 360 centimetres. In the usual height-by-width convention that means about 360 high by 520 wide. Its very large horizontal format differs from the tall Louvre Death of the Virgin and the more compact Dublin Taking of Christ. Scale and shape help explain why the Beheading's emptiness feels deliberate rather than unfinished.[1]
The present Oratory has changed since 1608. The Cathedral Foundation records later renovation and decorative work, especially under Mattia Preti in the late seventeenth century. A visitor sees the Caravaggio in a historic setting that is not identical to the room at installation. That distinction matters when reconstructing its first effect.[2][6]
Dominic Cutajar's architectural study reconstructs the first Oratory as a simpler rectangular room. He places the canvas between two piers on its east wall and identifies a south-wall window later obscured by Preti's alterations. On this reconstruction, daylight could have entered from the painting's left, strengthening the relation between the real room and the pictured light. This is a reasoned account of the earlier building, not evidence that we know exactly where Caravaggio stood to paint or precisely how the light fell on every day of the year.[8]
The Signature and What It Can Tell Us
The Co-Cathedral Foundation describes the Beheading as Caravaggio's signed painting. David M. Stone's scholarly study examines the signature as part of the painted blood and places it in the context of the artist's new status in the Order. The location of the letters is a visible fact; their intended meaning remains a subject of interpretation.[3][4]
The signature has sometimes been read as an act of contrition or an autobiographical cry after violence in Caravaggio's life. That is an interpretive claim, not a statement from the artist. Stone argues for an alternative context connected with brotherhood in the Order. A careful article can show where the signature is and why scholars discuss it without using the blood as proof of an inner confession.[4]
The unusual act of signing this canvas also helps distinguish it from many other works attributed to Caravaggio. It does not settle the authorship of those works by itself. Attributions elsewhere depend on provenance, material evidence and scholarship specific to each object.
The signature's material history calls for care when looking at a close-up today. Stone reports that examination during the first modern restoration, in 1955–57, found the inscription integral to the original paint, rather than a later addition. A French visitor described the signed painting in the Oratory after arriving in Malta in 1616, giving an early written witness as well. Those findings support the signature's authenticity without settling whether its abbreviated opening means fra (brother) or another formula, or what personal meaning Caravaggio gave its position.[4]
The lower canvas, including part of the signature, was damaged during an attempted theft in April 1989. The painting was restored in Florence between 1997 and 1999. Stone's comparison of photographs identifies substantial inpainting both across the new damage and in an older loss within the blood area. The current visible contour of every red mark cannot therefore be treated as untouched 1608 paint; the original inscription and later repair must be kept distinct.[4]
Caravaggio in the Order of St John
The Co-Cathedral's account places Caravaggio's arrival in Malta in 1607 and his acceptance as a Knight of Obedience on 14 July 1608 under Grand Master Alof de Wignacourt. It also records his imprisonment after a violent incident later that year, escape from Malta and expulsion by the Order on 1 December 1608. The Beheading was installed between his admission and expulsion.[1][2]
The Foundation gives 29 August as the installation date, but that does not establish that Caravaggio attended a ceremony. Stone's reading of the Order's records places a violent incident on 18 August and an indictment by 27 August; he considers it probable that the painter was already in custody by the feast. The painting could have entered its intended setting while the artist's standing in the Order was changing rapidly. That chronology matters more than an invented scene of him presenting the finished work in person.[2][4]
Stone also suggests that such a large altarpiece may have served as Caravaggio's passaggio, the gift customarily offered on admission to the Order. The usual contribution was money. This proposal could connect the painting's scale and timing to his July 1608 knighthood, but no surviving gift agreement quoted in the study establishes it as the contractual price of admission. It remains an interpretation of patronage rather than a recorded payment.[4]
These dates provide context but should not flatten the painting into a personal diary. The Oratory's patron saint, devotional function and institutional setting mattered to the commission. Caravaggio's conflict with the Order happened during the same short period, yet chronology alone does not show that every dark space or gesture in the painting was intended as a reference to his own troubles.
The Co-Cathedral also preserves Caravaggio's Saint Jerome Writing, a work of a very different size and subject. Other Malta pictures include Portrait of Alof de Wignacourt and His Page and Sleeping Cupid, now in other collections. Reading the Malta works together gives a fuller view of his activity than the expulsion episode alone.[1]
The Painting's Later Setting and Conservation Context
The Beheading remains where its first viewers were meant to encounter it, although the Oratory has been altered over time. The Cathedral Foundation's restoration account documents later embellishment and the original installation date. Its account of the Caravaggio Wing describes how the Oratory and adjacent spaces have been connected for modern visitors.[2][3]
The Oratory's institutional history sharpens the meaning of “original setting.” Grand Master Alof de Wignacourt ordered its construction in 1602, and it was completed in 1605. The Confraternita della Misericordia helped build it; novices used the room for devotion and meditation, and the confraternity held functions and knightly investitures there. Caravaggio's canvas was installed for the feast of John's beheading on 29 August 1608. The first audience was therefore a community for whom the Baptist was the Order's patron, not an anonymous gallery public.[2]
The room that now surrounds the painting is not visually frozen at 1608. Mattia Preti directed a major decorative programme from the late 1670s into the 1690s, and marble cladding was added in 1740. Today's encounter joins Caravaggio's earlier altarpiece to later Baroque painting and architecture. Distinguishing those layers prevents the room's present appearance from being projected wholesale back onto the canvas's first unveiling.[2][6]
Cutajar argues that Preti's new altar and vault changed the painting's visibility, leading to its being brought forward and hung higher. He also attributes the Wignacourt arms on its elaborate frame to the later grand master Adrien de Wignacourt, not to Alof, who admitted Caravaggio to the Order. If that reconstruction is correct, even the canvas's position and frame in today's Oratory belong partly to a later arrangement. They should not be used without qualification as evidence for the exact 1608 view.[8]
Nor was the painting's later place in the room entirely inevitable. Cutajar reports a 1612 commission from the Oratory's novice commissioners to Bartolomeo Garagona for a large Crucifixion, followed by a 1613 dispute when that work was rejected. He infers from its scale that it may have been intended to replace Caravaggio's Beheading; the surviving proceeding does not explicitly name the Caravaggio. The episode is best understood as a possible challenge to the arrangement, not proof that the Beheading was removed.[8]
The Foundation has also published information about building work and the conditions surrounding the painting. Such records are useful for current visits and for understanding the responsibilities of preserving a very large canvas in a working historic building. Current opening and access arrangements should be checked directly with the Co-Cathedral before travel.[6]
A contemporary museum report fills in the 1990s conservation chronology. Malta's Museums Department recorded the canvas being taken to Florence in June 1996 for treatment at the Opificio delle Pietre Dure and returning to the Oratory on 3 June 1999. Before its return, workers provided access behind the painting so a network of sensors on the canvas's reverse could be read. The report describes a plan for checks every six months to register changes in temperature and humidity; it does not by itself prove that every later check occurred. Conservators also cleaned the ornate seventeenth-century frame and adjusted the lighting during reinstallation. These measures show that caring for the painting involved its support and room as well as repairs to the painted surface.[9]
Bonsanti explains why the 1990s work went beyond mending the long slash. The painted layers had widespread, less obvious adhesion problems. The team relined and restretched the huge canvas on a new support with springs to control tension, replacing an earlier spring system from the 1950s treatment. Radiography recorded the surface in three horizontal strips rather than the 162 separate plates used during that earlier campaign. Raking-light examination found none of the often-discussed scratched positioning grooves in this particular painting; their absence is no argument against its authorship. Those surface observations and the later reported drawing traces use different methods and should not be treated as contradictory findings.[10][11]
No reproduction can replace the relation between the small figures and the long wall. A digital image is helpful for studying the signature or individual gestures, but the Oratory scale makes the painting's spaciousness a physical experience.
Other Images of John the Baptist
Caravaggio represented John at several ages and in several roles. Some Baptist portraits show him as a youth with an animal or in a wilderness setting. The Malta Beheading shows his death. The London and Madrid Salome subjects take up related moments after the killing; they are distinct pictures with their own collection histories.[7]
The Beheading itself also had an early life through copies. Stone cites the 1629 will of the knight Mandosio Mandosi, which lists a large, now-untraced copy of the Oratory painting by the Roman painter Silvestro Querio among several works for which he was owed payment. The document's 200 scudi debt covered the group of works, not the Beheading copy alone. This is evidence that the Maltese canvas was copied within a generation; it does not identify that copy with a surviving painting or make it a second Caravaggio original.[4]
For Caravaggio's career, see the artist guide and paintings directory. The biography develops the documentary account of his Malta period. The Beheading should be read as a painting made for an Order and a place, as well as a work made during a turbulent year.
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 The Beheading of Saint John the Baptist 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 The Beheading of Saint John the Baptist?
How large is it?
Did Caravaggio sign it?
When was it installed?
The Cathedral Foundation dates installation in the Oratory to 29 August 1608, the feast of the Beheading of Saint John.[2]
References
- St John's Co-Cathedral Foundation, Caravaggio and the two Malta paintings.
- St John's Co-Cathedral Foundation, history and restoration of the Oratory.
- St John's Co-Cathedral Foundation, the Caravaggio Wing.
- David M. Stone, “Signature Killer: Caravaggio and the Poetics of Blood,” The Art Bulletin 94, no. 4 (2012), full text.
- The Bible, Mark 6:17–29, King James Version.
- St John's Co-Cathedral Foundation, Oratory setting and windows.
- National Gallery, London, Salome Receives the Head of John the Baptist.
- Dominic Cutajar, “Caravaggio in Malta: His Works and His Influence,” University of Malta repository.
- Malta Museums Department, 1999 annual report, “Return to Malta of Caravaggio's The Beheading of the Baptist”, pp. 200–201.
- Giorgio Bonsanti, “The restoration of the Beheading of John the Baptist,” la Repubblica of the Arts, first-hand account of the Opificio delle Pietre Dure's 1997–99 treatment and radiography.
- Stefano Miliani, “Analisi scientifiche sulle opere maltesi di Caravaggio,” Il Giornale dell'Arte (12 May 2023), reporting preliminary findings from Maria Letizia Amadori and Gianluca Poldi.
- Annotated image source: Wikimedia Commons, File:The Beheading of Saint John-Caravaggio (1608).jpg, high-resolution reproduction used for the annotated details.
