Boy with a Basket of Fruit

Boy with a Basket of Fruit by Caravaggio

In Boy with a Basket of Fruit, a young man holds a basket so close to the front of the picture that its leaves, grapes and rounded fruit compete with his face for attention. Caravaggio makes the figure and the still life equally present. The painting belongs to the Galleria Borghese in Rome, whose catalogue dates it to about 1595. It is an early work, made before the large public chapel paintings that would establish his Roman reputation.^[1][2]

The canvas has a distinct collection history. It was among paintings in the possession of Giuseppe Cesari, the Cavalier d'Arpino, confiscated in 1607 and passed to Cardinal Scipione Borghese. Another early Caravaggio from that group, Young Sick Bacchus, is also in the Borghese collection. These records provide firmer ground than a story invented from the boy's expression alone.^[1][3]

Caravaggio in context

Works and career

15901595160016051610

The Cardsharps

c.1595

Calling of Saint Matthew

1599–1600

Supper at Emmaus

1601

Supper at Emmaus, 1606

1606

Beheading of Saint John

1608

Denial of Saint Peter

1610

At a Glance

• ArtistMichelangelo Merisi da Caravaggio, accepted by the present owner after earlier attribution debate^[1]
• TitleBoy with a Basket of Fruit (Giovane con canestra di frutta)^[1]
• Dateabout 1595 in the Galleria Borghese catalogue^[1]
• Mediumoil on canvas^[1]
• Dimensions70 × 67 cm, height × width^[1]
• CollectionGalleria Borghese, Rome, inventory 136^[1]
• Recorded early ownerGiuseppe Cesari; transferred through the 1607 confiscation to Scipione Borghese^[1]

Contents

1. What the Painting Shows
2. What a Horticulturist Sees in the Basket
3. The Basket as a Subject
4. The Youth and the Fruit Together
5. A Lombard Fruit-Seller Comparison
6. An Early Roman Work
7. The Route into the Borghese Collection
8. Another Fruit Painter in Cesari's Collection
9. Attribution and Dating
10. Comparing Other Fruit Paintings
11. Frequently Asked Questions

Look closer: Boy with a Basket of Fruit

The figure and the basket press into the same shallow foreground. Details show the contrast between soft flesh, varied fruit and woven fibres.

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Details from Boy with a Basket of Fruit

Select a detail image to open the full-size gallery, then use the arrows to compare views.

1

The boy’s face

The boy turns his head toward the viewer while light defines the cheek, lips and loose curls.

2

The fruit and leaves

Clusters of grapes, rounded fruit and broad leaves fill the basket, creating a dense arrangement in front of the boy.

3

The supporting hands

The boy’s hands carry the heavy basket at its lower edge, connecting the still life to the pose.

What the Painting Shows

The young man is seen from roughly the waist upward. He wears a loose white shirt that slips from one shoulder and turns his head toward the viewer. Both arms hold a woven basket across his body. The arrangement is simple, yet the eye keeps moving between the youth's exposed skin, folds of cloth, leaves and fruit. The basket is not a small accessory tucked into a corner; it fills much of the picture's lower half.^[1]

Grapes and apples appear among autumn leaves. The Galleria Borghese emphasises the fruit's natural imperfections rather than an idealised harvest. This is a useful way to look at the painting: the surfaces differ in weight, texture and ripeness. Thin leaves curl around larger rounded forms, while the boy's hands have to support the mass in front of him. The detail invites slow attention without requiring a single hidden allegory for each grape.^[1]

The young man's gaze can seem direct or distracted depending on which part of the picture one looks at first. It is tempting to give him a name or personal story, but no secure identification of the model follows from the cited owner record. The object is a composed painting of a youth and fruit, not an archival portrait of a named sitter.

What a Horticulturist Sees in the Basket

Horticulturist Jules Janick examined Caravaggio's fruit paintings as evidence of how particular plants were represented. In this canvas he identifies a blushed peach, clusters of grapes in different colours, a split pomegranate, ripe figs, medlars, apples and branches of small pears. This is a more varied basket than the quick label “grapes and apples” suggests. Janick also points to blemishes and discoloration on leaves and fruit, including a spotted grape leaf.^[13] His plant list encourages a reader to look from one kind of skin and leaf to another rather than treating the basket as a single coloured mass.

Some of Janick's further descriptions are diagnostic suggestions from the painted image. For example, he compares a pale mark on a grape leaf to an insect egg mass and describes other spots as possibly fungal. A painted mark cannot identify an insect species or establish the condition of a real plant through laboratory examination. It is valuable evidence of Caravaggio's attention to irregular forms; it is not evidence that the painter intended a botanical case study.^[13]

Janick's proposed 1592 date and his identification of the boy as Mario Minniti are also separate claims from his fruit observations. The Galleria Borghese currently dates the painting about 1595 and does not securely name its sitter.^[1][13] A specialist may be particularly well placed to describe fruit without having resolved the painting's disputed early chronology or the identity of the person who posed. These evidential questions should not be bundled into one apparent certainty.

The Basket as a Subject

The basket sits at a point where figure painting meets still life. It has the density of an independent subject, but it gains scale and movement from the arms holding it. The contrast gives Caravaggio a way to demonstrate close observation of two kinds of form: skin and cloth on one side, perishable plants and woven material on the other. The Borghese record describes this naturalism as a step toward the focused Basket of Fruit later made for Cardinal Federico Borromeo and now in Milan.^[1]

That comparison is valuable, but the works should not be collapsed into one. Boy with a Basket of Fruit is a near-square figure painting in Rome. The Ambrosiana Basket of Fruit is an independent still life in Milan with a separate owner and history. A search for “Caravaggio fruit basket” can return either, so title, collection and image caption should identify the right object.^[1][4]

The imperfections of fruit often prompt moral readings about time and decay. They may invite such interpretation, but the owner's primary account establishes what can be seen rather than assigning a guaranteed message to every leaf. A good reading separates observation from inference: name the grapes and blemished foliage first, then explain a possible reflection on transience as a possibility rather than a fact about Caravaggio's intention.

The Borghese catalogue records how differently historians have interpreted the same offering. Giulio Carlo Argan read the imperfect leaves as signs of beauty passing away. Other writers have proposed Autumn, the Roman figure Vertumnus, Taste, vanitas, erotic invitation or Christian love. The gallery reports these as competing interpretations, not as a list of meanings simultaneously confirmed by a document.^[1] Some depend heavily on the youth's expression or on the basket being read as a gift. Those features are visible, but neither tells us what a patron requested. The breadth of proposals is itself useful evidence of how little a conventional title settles the subject.

The Youth and the Fruit Together

The picture's visual tension lies in the balance between the human figure and the fruit. The youth holds the basket high enough to meet his chest, so the produce and face occupy adjacent spaces. His white shirt makes the darker leaf shapes legible; the fruit gives his hands a clear action. The physical burden of the basket stops the work from being simply a display of isolated botanical specimens.

Caravaggio's early subjects often place a small human drama around everyday things. The Fortune Teller uses a hand-reading encounter; Boy Bitten by a Lizard turns contact with a still life into a sudden recoil. Here the moment is quieter. The basket is held, the sitter is present, and the viewer has time to examine the objects. Comparing these works makes the range of early experimentation visible without pretending they were designed as a formal series.^[2][5]

The pose also raises a practical question about making the painting. A youth holding a full basket could sit for an artist; separate elements might be adjusted during work. Analysis reported by the Borghese gallery in 2012 found a preparatory sketch made directly on the canvas. This is evidence of planning beneath the finished image, although it does not establish precisely how many sittings or mirrors Caravaggio used.^[1]

A Lombard Fruit-Seller Comparison

Vincenzo Campi's Fruit Seller at the Pinacoteca di Brera offers a documented earlier comparison. Brera dates the much larger canvas to 1578–81. Its female seller presents a bunch of grapes amid baskets and vessels crowded with fruit and vegetables, with a landscape behind. The museum places it in a group of four genre paintings and describes the careful rendering of individual goods as important to the development of still life in Lombardy.^[9]

Caravaggio's Borghese boy also holds fruit toward the viewer, but the near-square canvas strips away Campi's market abundance, landscape and broader narrative. A basket and a single person now take almost the whole field. The comparison makes an artistic choice visible: produce can be displayed as one part of a busy trade scene or made equal in scale and attention to a human face. Campi's work predates Caravaggio's Roman canvas, but neither the Brera record nor a similarity of subject proves that Caravaggio copied this exact painting.^[1][9]

Art historian Michael Viktor Schwarz offers a different, classical comparison. Pliny the Elder tells of Zeuxis painting a boy with grapes so convincing that birds flew toward the fruit; Zeuxis complained that he had rendered the boy less persuasively, or the birds would have feared him. Schwarz proposes that Caravaggio's equally forceful rendering of boy and fruit may answer that ancient challenge. This is a modern interpretation of a possible artistic ambition, not a documented commission, title or proof that Caravaggio consciously illustrated Pliny. It helps readers see why the relative visual weight of youth and basket matters.^[10][11]

An Early Roman Work

The Galleria Borghese dates the canvas to about 1595 and links it to Caravaggio's period in the workshop of Giuseppe Cesari. Rome's official Caravaggio itinerary gives an earlier range, 1593–95, for this and Young Sick Bacchus. These are catalogue judgments, not a day-and-month creation record. The Borghese owner's current c.1595 date is the sensible facts-box lead, while the broader chronological discussion can acknowledge different published ranges.^[1][2]

The early period matters because the picture precedes the celebrated Contarelli Chapel canvases. The Calling of Saint Matthew and Martyrdom of Saint Matthew are large public works dated 1599–1600. Boy with a Basket of Fruit is small enough for a private collection and focuses on a single youth. It shows the precise looking and dense presence that would later serve more complex sacred narratives, but its immediate subject is not a biblical event.^[2][6]

Biographical accounts of Caravaggio's first years in Rome have been revised by archival discoveries. That is another reason to use an owner catalogue date rather than build a false exact chronology from familiar anecdotes about arrival, illness or a particular patron. The painting's recorded passage through Cesari is more secure than identifying its first buyer from an unsupported story.^[1][7]

The Borghese catalogue shows the range behind its short label “about 1595.” It reports older proposals as early as 1589–90 and a 1592–94 dating by Denis Mahon. Alessandro Zuccari later argued for 1596–97 after revising Caravaggio's arrival in Rome, placing this canvas after Young Sick Bacchus and before a Boy Bitten by a Lizard version.^[1] Those are reconstructions of a sequence, not dated documents attached to this picture. The disagreement changes how confidently one can say it was painted at a precise point in Cesari's workshop. The secure collection fact is that it was in Cesari's possession by the 1607 seizure.

The Route into the Borghese Collection

The owner records the painting in Cesari's collection before 1607. In that year officials acting under Pope Paul V confiscated Cesari's pictures in a case connected with possession of firearms. The group included 107 paintings; Boy with a Basket of Fruit and Young Sick Bacchus were subsequently given to the pope's nephew Scipione Borghese. The gallery's record cites the confiscation inventory and later Borghese inventories.^[1]

This route is remarkable, but it should not be romanticised as a voluntary gift from Cesari or a direct commission by Scipione. The 1607 event explains how an early Caravaggio picture entered a major Roman collection. It does not tell us every transaction by which it first came into Cesari's hands. The cited inventory's description of a youth holding a basket is an important object anchor because it connects a subject, collection and historical moment.^[1]

The Galleria Borghese assigns the work inventory number 136. That identifier distinguishes it from other youthful Caravaggio figures in the same institution.

The trail continues after Scipione Borghese. The gallery records the painting in Borghese inventories of 1693 and 1790, in the family's 1833 fideicommissary inventory, and in the Italian state's 1902 acquisition. These entries matter because they connect a picture named for a youth and a fruit basket across changes of catalogue wording and ownership arrangements.^[1] They do not fill the earlier gap between Caravaggio's painting of the canvas and Cesari's possession of it.

The 1790 inventory also listed an “uomo con canestra di fiori,” a man with a basket of flowers, under Caravaggio's name. The Borghese catalogue says that other work did not pass through the 1833 fideicommissary inventory.^[1] It must not be silently treated as a variant title for the surviving boy and fruit basket, or as proof of another extant Caravaggio painting. The documented descriptions distinguish fruit from flowers and give the second entry a different subsequent record. The point is a limit on identification, not a new attribution.

The gallery's searchable inventory index adds a caution to this trail. It links an 1809 entry headed as a shipment to Turin to today's inventory 136, yet the transcribed line calls the subject a man with a basket of flowers. An 1812 entry also says flowers and marks its identification with 136 with a question mark. An 1816 return-from-Paris list is linked to 136 but describes a head with a flower basket and gives dimensions of 66 × 49.5 cm, unlike the present canvas's 70 × 67 cm.^[14] These records show how the museum has grouped possible references for study. Their differing words and measurements do not prove that this particular Caravaggio travelled to Turin or Paris. The fruit-basket descriptions in 1607, 1693 and the separate 1790 entry remain the clearer anchors.^[1][14]

Another Fruit Painter in Cesari's Collection

The 1607 seizure included more than Caravaggio's two surviving Borghese pictures. The same museum catalogues a separate Vase of Flowers, Fruit, and Vegetables and its companion Still Life with Birds from Cesari's collection under the provisional name Master of Hartford. Both were once proposed as Caravaggios. The owner now treats them as the work of a still unidentified painter close to the Cesari workshop, while acknowledging that the master's identity has been debated.^[12]

The distinction rests on more than the paintings' titles. The Borghese catalogue says 2016 technical examination linked the two large still lifes to one another: both use two horizontally joined canvas pieces, a thin, methodical line on the ground and carefully layered paint. These findings support a common hand for that pair, but the museum explicitly says they do not establish the painter's name. The same entry compares their light and baskets with Caravaggio's early work while keeping Boy with a Basket of Fruit a separate, accepted Caravaggio canvas.^[12][1]

This is why Cesari's ownership cannot serve as an attribution shortcut. Several painters and objects could be present in his circle; a shared route into Scipione Borghese's collection establishes provenance, not that every fruit painting came from Caravaggio's brush. It also makes the boy's canvas more distinctive: the fruit is intimately joined to one figure, whereas the Hartford pair builds elaborate still-life fields without a human carrier.^[12][1]

Attribution and Dating

The picture is now catalogued as Caravaggio by its owner, yet the record is candid about an earlier debate. Some nineteenth- and early twentieth-century scholars doubted the attribution or regarded it as a copy. Others, including Roberto Longhi and Denis Mahon, argued for Caravaggio. The Borghese account describes later scholarly acceptance of the autograph painting. Its present attribution has a history of reassessment.^[1]

That history is more precise than a simple story of discovery. Giovanni Piancastelli questioned the painting in 1891; Adolfo Venturi defended its attribution in the gallery's first catalogue two years later. Matteo Marangoni later published it as an old copy, while Longhi, Mahon and others argued for Caravaggio before the gallery's current consensus formed.^[1] The old inventories anchor the picture's presence in the collection, but an early written attribution is not by itself a laboratory test of the paint. Conversely, the 2012 discovery of a sketch beneath this canvas strengthens study of its making without converting every proposed date or symbolic reading into certainty.

The date has a similar need for precision. A c.1595 catalogue date is not a license to assign every detail to one narrow episode in Caravaggio's life. Nor should a provisional date from an older general list override the present owner's record without explanation. The work can be discussed as early Roman Caravaggio while preserving the approximate nature of the dating.^[1][2]

The owner's record lists treatment in 1963–64 and 2001, with diagnostic work in 2000.^[1] It separately reports a sketch directly on the canvas revealed by investigations described as 2012 in its catalogue essay. These dates tell us that the present painted surface and the evidence beneath it have been examined at different times; the short public record does not explain how every line of the sketch was detected or what each intervention changed. A sketch on this canvas is consistent with preparation, but it cannot identify a lost paper drawing, a named model or a precise year of execution.^[1]

Attribution and interpretation are different questions. A painting can be accepted as Caravaggio and still leave its sitter, commission and symbolic intention uncertain. The first question concerns maker; the others require separate evidence. The basket's details may be close observation, allegory, display of skill or some combination. None needs to be settled by inventing a patron's instruction.

Comparing Other Fruit Paintings

The Ambrosiana Basket of Fruit removes the human carrier and lets the still life stand alone. The Uffizi Bacchus and Borghese Young Sick Bacchus put grapes beside figures associated with the wine god. The Supper at Emmaus sets fruit on a table within a dramatic religious recognition. These are distinct objects made for different settings, but comparison shows how fruit can shift from a principal subject to a narrative detail.^[1][4][8]

Close looking begins with each painting's own facts. It is especially important online, where a crop of the fruit could be detached from the boy and mistakenly used as an image of the Milan still life. The full figure-and-basket composition, title and Borghese credit should stay together in the primary image.

The Morgan Library & Museum displayed the Borghese picture on loan in New York from 16 January to 19 April 2026. Its focused exhibition placed the canvas alongside earlier Milanese and Annibale Carracci works and later Roman responses. That curatorial grouping asks a different question from pairing Caravaggio's own fruit paintings: how a naturalistic image of an ordinary youth challenged more idealised figure painting and how later artists responded.^[15] The exhibition is evidence of a modern comparison, not a record that Caravaggio saw each work in the display. Its concluded loan also does not change the canvas's Borghese ownership or guarantee a present room assignment in Rome.^[1][15]

Explore the Caravaggio collection

94 pages

Search pagesTypeAll typesArtworkGuideReset

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

Discussion

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Frequently Asked Questions

References

1. Galleria Borghese, Giovane con canestra di frutta, inv. 136, object, provenance and attribution record.
2. Roma Capitale, “I luoghi di Caravaggio”, early Roman group and Contarelli chronology.
3. Galleria Borghese, Autoritratto in veste di Bacco (Bacchino malato), inv. 534, paired Cesari provenance.
4. Pinacoteca Ambrosiana, Basket of Fruit, distinct Milan work.
5. National Gallery, London, Boy bitten by a Lizard, NG6504, early genre comparison.
6. Metropolitan Museum of Art, Caravaggio and his followers, 1600 public commission.
7. Italian Ministry of Culture, new archival documents on Caravaggio in Rome, revised early-life evidence.
8. National Gallery, London, The Supper at Emmaus, NG172, still life in narrative setting.
9. Pinacoteca di Brera, Vincenzo Campi, Fruttivendola (Fruit Seller), inventory 397, object date, composition and Lombard still-life context.
10. Michael Viktor Schwarz, “What Is Style For?,” ARS 39 (2006), pp. 21–32, scholarly comparison with Zeuxis.
11. Pliny the Elder, Natural History, book 35, section 66, English translation of the Zeuxis account.
12. Galleria Borghese, Vase of Flowers, Fruit, and Vegetables, inventory 054, Master of Hartford attribution and 2016 technical comparison with Still Life with Birds.
13. Jules Janick, “Caravaggio's Fruit: A Mirror on Baroque Horticulture,” Chronica Horticulturae 44, no. 4 (2004), Purdue University text, first-hand horticultural reading of the Borghese fruit basket; plant disorders are proposed from appearances in paint.
14. Galleria Borghese digital archive, inventory records linked to present inv. 136, especially the 1809 Turin-shipment entry, 1812 entry and 1816 Paris-return entry; title and dimension discrepancies limit identification.
15. Morgan Library & Museum, Caravaggio's “Boy with a Basket of Fruit” in Focus, 16 January–19 April 2026, owner loan and comparative exhibition account.
16. Annotated image source: Wikimedia Commons, File:Boy with a Basket of Fruit by Caravaggio.jpg, high-resolution reproduction used for the annotated details.

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