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 Cardsharps by Caravaggio
Three young men share a game of cards, but only two know its rules. The player at the left studies his hand. Behind him an older accomplice peers at the cards and signals with a raised glove. The young cheat at the right reaches behind his back for a hidden card. Caravaggio gives the viewer knowledge the victim lacks, turning a small table into a scene of suspense.[1]
The Kimbell Art Museum in Fort Worth dates The Cardsharps to about 1596–97. Its owner record links the painting to Cardinal Francesco Maria del Monte, whose support helped Caravaggio gain access to influential Roman patrons. Technical examination has also made this unusually revealing as a painting: small changes, incisions and a seal on the reverse help establish how it was made and where it once belonged.[1]
Caravaggio in context
The Cardsharps
c.1595Calling of Saint Matthew
1599–1600Supper at Emmaus
1601At a Glance
- ArtistMichelangelo Merisi, called Caravaggio (1571–1610)
- TitleThe Cardsharps (I Bari)
- Dateabout 1596–97 in the Kimbell's current object record[1]
- Mediumoil on canvas[1]
- Dimensions94.2 × 130.9 cm, unframed[1]
- CollectionKimbell Art Museum, Fort Worth, accession AP 1987.06[1]
- Subjecta game of primero in which two accomplices cheat a younger player[1]
- Early ownerCardinal Francesco Maria del Monte; his seal survives on the back[1]
Contents
- What Is Happening at the Table?
- How the Deception Is Shown
- The Viewer's Part in the Scene
- Clothing, Cards and the Pleasure of Detail
- A Street Scene, a Print or a Stage Scene?
- Del Monte and Caravaggio's Early Career
- What Conservation Revealed
- The Disputed Mahon Version
- Rediscovery, Copies and Influence
- Frequently Asked Questions
Look closer: The Cardsharps
The trick unfolds through hands, glances and a concealed set of cards. These close views show how the viewer learns more than the young player does.
123Details from The Cardsharps
Select a detail image to open the full-size gallery, then use the arrows to compare views.
The unwary player
The young player studies his cards while the older accomplice peers over his shoulder. Their opposed gazes establish the deception.
The hidden cards
The cheat draws cards from behind his back, a small action made legible by the bright striped costume and diagonal arm.
The shared signal
The older accomplice leans between the players and signals with raised fingers; the action links the two conspirators across the table.
What Is Happening at the Table?
The card game is primero, an early gambling game. The player on the left appears absorbed in the cards he holds. He does not see the man behind him looking over his shoulder. That man signals the value of the cards to the player opposite, who has a card concealed at his back. The Kimbell's account makes the relationship clear: the older man and the richly dressed youth work together, while the other youth is their unsuspecting target.[1]
Caravaggio chooses the instant before the trick is completed. The hidden card has not yet been played. The victim has not turned. We are given enough information to predict what may happen but no final outcome. This makes the composition more than an illustration of cheating. It is a small narrative about attention: who sees whom, who is being watched, and how knowledge moves invisibly across a shared table.
The space is shallow and the figures are close. There is no crowd to explain the moral of the story. Each body is placed so that a glance or hand matters. The scene is legible from a distance, yet its fuller plot rewards looking at details: the raised glove, the face behind the victim, and the card at the right man's back.
How the Deception Is Shown
The older cheat's glove is a small theatrical device. Its fingertips are exposed, a practical feature the Kimbell explains as useful for feeling marked cards. His hand also signals to his partner. The action is conspicuous to us because the man stands behind the victim; to the player at the left, it remains outside view.[1]
The right-hand cheat's movement is similarly divided. His face and upper body attend to the game, while a hand reaches back for the hidden card. Caravaggio lets the viewer read the movement before the victim can. Deception therefore appears not as a mask worn by a single villain but as a coordinated exchange of information between two people.
The young dupe is not made foolish through grotesque features. His attention to his hand is exactly what a card player would need. That ordinary concentration is the weakness the others exploit. The Kimbell notes that Caravaggio avoids simple caricature of vice; the figures have a human relationship rather than the fixed roles of a moral cartoon.[1]
The Viewer's Part in the Scene
We stand just outside the table, close enough to see what the victim cannot. That privileged position creates both pleasure and discomfort. We can enjoy the painter's clever arrangement, but our knowledge does nothing to warn the player. Caravaggio makes us witnesses to a deception already under way.
The painting's light helps sustain that double position. It illuminates fabrics, hands and faces without reserving a spotlight for a moral hero. The visual clues are visible in ordinary light; the mystery is social, not optical. The victim's blind spot is caused by where he sits and whom he trusts.
The composition can also be read as a study in youth and experience. The older cheat directs the operation; the younger partner carries it out; the third youth is the target. That pattern does not require us to know their real names or to invent a specific tavern. The painting supplies enough about their relation through gesture and placement.
Clothing, Cards and the Pleasure of Detail
Caravaggio makes the cheats visually attractive. The right-hand youth's cap, doublet and stripes, and the central figure's patterned silk encourage close looking. The delicacy of fabric sits beside the coarse act of cheating. Fine clothes do not serve as a reliable sign of honest behaviour.[1]
The cards are equally important. They make the exchange precise enough to understand as a game rather than a general allegory of trickery. Small red hearts remain visible in the Kimbell's well-preserved paint, and the museum notes that even their red glazes survive. Details like these preserve the scene's sense of a specific material world.[1]
The painting can suggest moral questions about gullibility, desire for gain and manipulation. It need not be reduced to a sermon. Its force lies in allowing the viewer to notice the trick independently, then reflect on why the victim misses it.
The cheat's costume supplies a less innocent clue than silk alone. The Kimbell identifies a stiletto tucked into his belt and compares his cap and striped doublet with dress associated with a bravo, a hired fighting man. The knife is visible in the picture, but identifying the painted youth as an actual mercenary would go further than the evidence. The comparison tells us what a contemporary viewer might have associated with the costume: risk as well as fashionable display.[3]
The table also holds more than cards. In the Metropolitan Museum's exhibition catalogue, Keith Christiansen identifies an Anatolian carpet covering the table, along with a backgammon board and dice shaker. These objects make the setting an arranged world of play and wagers rather than an empty stage for three heads. Their careful painting rewards a second look after the deception itself is understood.[5]
A Street Scene, a Print or a Stage Scene?
The Kimbell points to a Northern print, Hans Holbein's woodcut of gamblers from the Pictures of Death, as a possible visual precedent. It also notes that a soldier of fortune was a familiar type in the commedia dell'arte. Such connections expand the painting's setting beyond a single observed card game: the scene could draw on images and performances that viewers already knew. Neither parallel demonstrates that Caravaggio copied a specific woodcut or staged the sitters as a particular troupe.[3]
Christiansen's Met catalogue also names a Lombard painting of people playing chess by Giulio Campi as a possible precedent for a mixed group at a game. His distinction is useful: Caravaggio makes the cheating itself the main action, then gives the deception the immediacy of an ordinary encounter. That is an art-historical comparison, not proof that Campi's picture was in Caravaggio's studio. It helps explain why a subject with older pictorial relatives could still feel new in Rome.[5]
Del Monte and Caravaggio's Early Career
The Kimbell states that Cardinal Francesco Maria del Monte bought The Cardsharps and offered Caravaggio quarters in his palace. Its history places the painting near a turning point in the young artist's Roman career, when private pictures helped him reach a network of patrons. Del Monte's seal on the back and a later inventory connect the object to that ownership.[1]
The Met's overview also treats the picture as an influential early work purchased by del Monte and widely copied. This patronage mattered for later public opportunities, including the Matthew paintings in the Contarelli Chapel. The relationship is stronger evidence for the work's historical role than a claim that one picture alone suddenly created Caravaggio's fame.[2]
The Kimbell's current object date is about 1596–97. Other material issued by the museum has used dates around 1595. These are scholarly approximations for an early work, not contradictory documented birthdays for the canvas. The current object record supplies the date in this article, while the range reminds us that chronological precision has limits.[1][3]
The Met catalogue presents Bellori's later account of del Monte buying The Cardsharps beside Baglione's report that a dealer near San Luigi dei Francesi sold the cardinal some Caravaggio pictures. Whether this particular canvas passed through that dealer is a possibility, not an established transaction. Its documented place in del Monte's collection is firmer than the exact path by which the cardinal first saw it.[1][5]
What Conservation Revealed
The Kimbell's conservation account describes a light gray ground in this painting, a surface preparation it relates to Caravaggio's north Italian training. Its infrared examination shows changes to the right-hand cheat's hand, cards, belt and striped doublet. The gloved hand of the central figure was painted before the adjacent cheat's clothing overlapped it. The composition developed as figures and details were placed, revised and partly covered.[1]
The museum found only a few incisions in the wet ground here, including near the victim's fingertips and the edges of cards. Such marks became more extensive in other works. It also records unusually direct ways of producing texture: Caravaggio blotted wet paint with a finger or thumb to suggest silk brocade and used the butt of a brush for black embroidery. These are findings about the Kimbell canvas, not permission to claim that all his paintings were made in exactly the same way.[1]
A later strip of canvas had once been added at the top. Its removal during the 1987 restoration restored the present dimensions. Removing a lining also exposed del Monte's stamped seal on the reverse. Conservation thus altered both how the composition is seen and how confidently its early ownership could be traced.[1]
The Disputed Mahon Version
Another painting of the same scene has a separate history and a disputed attribution. Formerly owned by the Thwaytes family, it was sold at Sotheby's in 2006 as a work by a follower of Caravaggio. Denis Mahon subsequently argued that it, too, was painted by Caravaggio, and even proposed that it came before the Kimbell canvas. From 2013 to June 2021 it was on loan to London's Museum of the Order of St John, which explained Mahon's case to visitors. The museum's display did not make the two objects interchangeable: the Kimbell painting has its own documented del Monte and Barberini provenance.[6][7]
The later Christie’s catalogue lists the Mahon or Thwaytes painting as “Circle of Michelangelo Merisi da Caravaggio.” At 104.7 × 132.2 cm, its recorded dimensions differ from those of the Kimbell canvas. Its catalogue essay describes scholars who had supported an autograph attribution, but the accompanying sale-room notice qualifies that history. It says Antonio Paolucci had withdrawn his support, Daniele Benati had never expressed a definitive view, and restorers had questioned observations about incisions and the ground that had been offered as technical support. The notice therefore matters as much as the essay when reading the attribution claims.[7]
The disagreement also reached court. In Thwaytes v Sotheby's, the former owner argued that Sotheby's had failed to investigate the painting adequately before the 2006 sale. The 2015 High Court judgment dismissed that claim, finding that the auction house's assessment had met the required standard of care. That ruling did not decide once and for all who painted the Mahon version. Indeed, the judgment explicitly treated the Kimbell canvas as an accepted autograph work while identifying the Thwaytes painting as the separate, disputed object. Questions about an autograph second version, an early copy and the interpretation of technical marks belong to that other painting, not to the identity of the Kimbell work discussed here.[8]
Rediscovery, Copies and Influence
The painting had been out of public knowledge for about ninety years when it reappeared in a European private collection in 1987. The Kimbell acquired it that year. Its physical evidence, including revisions and del Monte's seal, mattered because copies of the composition were known. A compelling likeness alone would not have established which canvas was the influential original.[1][3]
The Kimbell's detailed provenance fills in much of the earlier route. After del Monte's death, the painting passed to his nephew Alessandro del Monte and was bought in 1628 by Cardinal Antonio Barberini. It then descended through Barberini family branches before an 1812 allocation to Maffeo Barberini Colonna di Sciarra. The Kimbell traces it within that family to about 1895, after which it records a European private collection and the 1987 purchase. This sequence makes the ninety-year public gap more precise: it is a break in the modern visibility of an identified painting, not an absence of any earlier ownership record.[1]
The transfer to Barberini has a more precise documentary anchor than a family-name sequence alone. The Vatican Library identifies a 6 May 1628 payment to the bishop of Gubbio for three Caravaggio paintings including The Cardsharps, and supplies the archive shelfmark for the payment record.[10] Art historian Clovis Whitfield discusses another Barberini account entry of 8 May for a larger group of paintings and books bought from Alessandro del Monte. Its 550 scudi is the price for the group, not a documented individual price for The Cardsharps. The two dates refer to separate surviving records of the same acquisition period; neither supplies a receipt for del Monte's original purchase from Caravaggio.[9][10]
Whitfield also follows the painting within Antonio Barberini's collection. A 1644 inventory places the three card players in a room called the Stanza del Parnaso. By the 1671 inventory the Cardsharps, Saint Catherine and Lute Player were recorded in Antonio's Casa Grande, with the musical picture opposite his bed and the other two at either side. These room descriptions document later display choices, not the setting in which Caravaggio first conceived the card game.[9]
The exposed del Monte stamp is particularly consequential because the Kimbell says a comparable collection mark had been found on the Capitoline Fortune Teller. A stamp does not authenticate every brushstroke by itself, but its agreement with the documented del Monte ownership, the early style and the canvas's revisions builds a stronger object identification than a famous title or a visual resemblance to copies. The work's rediscovery was therefore an archival and material argument as well as a connoisseurial one.[1]
The subject travelled widely through copies and related pictures. The Kimbell points to Georges de La Tour's Cheat with the Ace of Clubs in its own collection as one later response to a theme of card play and deception. The Met holds an anonymous drawing after The Cardsharps, which it catalogues as “After Caravaggio,” not as a drawing made by Caravaggio himself. These records show influence without multiplying the artist's autograph works.[1][4]
The Met sheet is more informative than a simple copied outline. It is an inexact reprise of the painting, with a second quick sketch of the young cheat's head and written colour notes, including red trousers with yellow stripes. The museum dates it broadly to 1600–1700 and favours an Italian copyist while recording an earlier proposal of a Northern artist around 1600. The annotations help show an artist studying a finished painted composition, but cannot identify the sheet as Caravaggio's own preparation for the Kimbell canvas.[4]
Copies were already a problem for early viewers. Christiansen records more than thirty known copies and notes a 1621 dispute in which Giulio Mancini was asked to judge a copy owned by the Marchese Sannesio. That episode is evidence of the composition's early circulation and of the difficulty of deciding which version had authority. The Met catalogue also cautions against calling The Cardsharps and The Fortune Teller a formal pair simply because both belonged to del Monte: their subjects are related and the 1627 inventory places them in the same room, but their dimensions differ substantially.[5]
There is also a named copy commission. A Barberini payment published by Marilyn Aronberg Lavin and discussed by Whitfield records 22 scudi paid to Carlo Magnone on 20 June 1642 for copies of two Caravaggio pictures, one showing three people playing and the other a lute player. The payment establishes that a Cardsharps copy was commissioned and paid for; it does not identify any surviving canvas as Magnone's or prove that the disputed Mahon–Thwaytes version is his.[9] A separate painting catalogued by Christie's as by a follower follows the Kimbell composition closely, with a changed shirt colour and slight adjustments. Its near-original size and strong likeness are useful evidence of copying, not proof of autograph authorship.[11]
To place the painting among Caravaggio's early subjects, compare the Fortune Teller, Bacchus and The Musicians. For his later public Roman work, continue to the Calling of Saint Matthew. The paintings directory keeps versions and copies distinct.
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 Cardsharps 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 Cardsharps?
It belongs to the Kimbell Art Museum in Fort Worth, Texas. Its accession number is AP 1987.06. The museum's current object page gives display information.[1]
When did Caravaggio paint it?
Who is cheating?
The older man behind the left player signals information to the youth at the right, who reaches for a hidden card. The left player is the unsuspecting victim.[1]
How do we know the Kimbell painting belonged to del Monte?
The Kimbell records the cardinal's stamped seal on the reverse and its appearance in his inventory. The seal became visible during conservation after a lining was removed.[1]
Did Caravaggio draw this scene first?
No preparatory drawing is securely linked to this painting. The Kimbell describes figures painted on the canvas, a few incisions and several changes visible through technical examination. This establishes visible stages of work, not the absence of all prior planning.[1]
References
- Kimbell Art Museum, The Cardsharps, AP 1987.06.
- The Metropolitan Museum of Art, Caravaggio and his followers.
- Kimbell Art Museum, fiftieth-anniversary collection story.
- The Metropolitan Museum of Art, anonymous study after Caravaggio's Cardsharps.
- Keith Christiansen, A Caravaggio Rediscovered: The Lute Player, Metropolitan Museum of Art, catalogue entry for The Cardsharps.
- Museum of the Order of St John, “Caravaggio: Facts and Fiction”.
- Christie's, The Cardsharps: I Bari, Mahon–Thwaytes version, catalogue and sale-room notice.
- High Court of Justice, Thwaytes v Sotheby's, [2015] EWHC 36 (Ch), judgment.
- Clovis Whitfield, “From the new Barberini inventories: St Catherine, The Cardsharps and The Lute Player”, About Art Online, 22 December 2024; transcribes the 1628 account and cites Lavin's edition of the 1642 Magnone payment.
- Vatican Library, June 2025 newsletter, p. 4, identifying the 6 May 1628 payment record in Arch. Barb. Giustificazioni I, 235, fasc. 2, f. 58r.
- Christie's, The Cardsharps, catalogued as Follower of Caravaggio, catalogue note on a separate close replica.
- Annotated image source: Wikimedia Commons, File:Caravaggio - The Cardsharps (1596-97) Kimbell Art Museum.jpg, high-resolution reproduction used for the annotated details.
