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 Taking of Christ by Caravaggio
Judas has drawn close enough to kiss Christ. Guards press in from the right, and a disciple flees from the left with his arms raised. The scene has almost no space in which to escape: faces and metal crowd the picture's surface. Caravaggio's Taking of Christ makes an arrest that is already known from the Gospels feel immediate and unresolved.[1]
The painting was made for the Roman patron Ciriaco Mattei in 1602. It is now displayed by the National Gallery of Ireland in Dublin on indefinite loan from the Jesuit Community of Leeson Street. Its rediscovery in a Jesuit house in 1990 is a remarkable part of its modern history, but the picture itself asks for sustained attention to the encounter between Judas, Christ, the guards and the witness at the edge.[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 Taking of Christ (La cattura di Cristo)
- Date1602[1]
- Mediumoil on canvas[1]
- Dimensions135.5 × 169.5 cm[1]
- Ownerthe Jesuit Community, Leeson Street, Dublin[1]
- Displayon indefinite loan to the National Gallery of Ireland, object L.14702[1]
- Original patronMarchese Ciriaco Mattei in Rome[1]
- SubjectJudas identifies Jesus to the arresting party in Gethsemane[1][2]
Contents
- What Is Happening in the Painting?
- Judas, Christ and the Crowded Centre
- The Fleeing Disciple and the Guards
- The Lantern Bearer and a Possible Self-Portrait
- Light, Metal and Compressed Space
- The Mattei Commission
- Another Roman Taking of Christ
- Rediscovery and Current Ownership
- Copies, Versions and the Limits of Technical Evidence
- Frequently Asked Questions
Look closer: The Taking of Christ
The arrest is compressed into a small, crowded space. A close view reveals how hands, faces and polished armour carry the movement.
123Details from The Taking of Christ
Select a detail image to open the full-size gallery, then use the arrows to compare views.
Judas and Christ
Judas presses his face against Christ, while Christ lowers his eyes and clasps his hands below. The betrayal is shown as a physical embrace.
The soldier’s armour
Light flashes across the soldier’s metal arm and helmet, dividing the dark crowd and pushing the arrest toward the viewer.
The lantern bearer
A figure at the far right raises a lantern over the scene, a small light source held above the packed heads.
What Is Happening in the Painting?
The Gospel accounts describe Judas's identification of Jesus to the group sent to arrest him. In Caravaggio's painting, the kiss has begun. Judas's arm encloses Christ's shoulder, while an armoured guard reaches across them. Christ folds his hands together and looks down. The scene is both a public seizure and an intimate betrayal: the signal comes from a face pressed against his own.[1][2]
Caravaggio chooses a moment in which several actions cannot be separated. Judas identifies, the guard seizes, a disciple leaves, and a lantern bearer leans in to see. The spectator is brought close enough to read expressions, yet the overlapping bodies make the larger setting almost disappear. The National Gallery of Ireland notes only a small olive branch as a clue to place. We are not given a spacious Garden of Gethsemane to survey; we must follow the actions among people.[1]
This closeness changes the emotional pace. Christ's stillness is not isolation from the violence. His folded hands sit at its centre. Judas's face, the pressure of the guard's glove and the moving armour surround him. The moment feels suspended precisely because the bodies are already committed to movement.
Judas, Christ and the Crowded Centre
The kiss is a sign used for recognition, but here it is also a physical event. Judas has to force his way into a crowded space to reach Christ. His body pushes into the left of the composition, and his arm binds the two figures together. Caravaggio makes betrayal legible without an identifying inscription or a separate narrative panel.
Christ's reaction is restrained. The Gallery describes his expression as disturbed acceptance. That phrase belongs to its reading of the painted face, not to a document recording the sitter's thoughts. What we can see is his downward gaze, closed hands and relative lack of resistance, especially against the agitation around him.[1]
The guard's arm crosses in front of Judas and Christ. Metal, leather and cloth meet at the centre. A viewer may first see the shine of armour and only then notice whose body is being taken. This delay is part of the painting's construction: the arresting force appears as a pressure of forms before it becomes a fully counted group of men.
The Fleeing Disciple and the Guards
At the far left, a young man raises his arms and runs out of the picture. The National Gallery of Ireland identifies him as John the Evangelist. His open mouth and movement give the still centre a counterpoint. He is visibly too late to prevent the arrest and too frightened to remain.[1]
The Gospels' accounts differ in their details of the arrest, so the painted figure should be identified by the Gallery's catalogue rather than treated as an unavoidable name supplied by every text. His main visual role is clear even without settling every textual comparison: he carries the scene's fear beyond the frame.[1][2]
The guards press in from the other side. Their helmets and hard surfaces produce a repeating rhythm unlike the soft flesh and cloth of the central figures. The painting does not give each guard an independent portrait or story. As a group they compress the space and make the action feel unstoppable.
The Lantern Bearer and a Possible Self-Portrait
At the far right, a man holds a lantern above the crowd and cranes forward to watch. The National Gallery of Ireland identifies him as a self-portrait of Caravaggio at about thirty-one. That is a long-standing and institutionally presented reading; it should still be stated as an identification made by the Gallery, not as a documented sitting record.[1]
His position makes him an unusual witness. He is near the guards but looks over them rather than taking hold of Christ. The lantern he carries appears small and relatively weak beside the light that actually reveals the figures. The Gallery notes this mismatch. It allows the object to have a narrative function—a search party needs light—while the painting's illumination has a different visual source.[1]
If the face is Caravaggio's, he has placed himself at the edge of a biblical event, trying to see it. The interpretation adds a question about the artist as witness. The picture remains compelling even if the likeness cannot be independently confirmed, because the lantern bearer also gives the viewer a human counterpart for looking into the darkness.
Light, Metal and Compressed Space
The illumination catches Christ's face, Judas's cheek, a sleeve and the guards' polished armour. It leaves much of the background in darkness. The light does not map a full room or garden; it selects the parts of the action a viewer needs to read. Shining metal can attract the eye, but it also blocks the view of the people behind it.
The canvas is wider than it is high, yet the figures have little lateral space. Heads, arms and helmets overlap in a shallow band. Caravaggio gets force from the contradiction: the picture extends outward, while the event presses inward around Christ. We feel the lack of room before we have identified every person.
The Gallery's record says that some changes made during painting have become visible as paint layers have grown more transparent. These pentimenti show Caravaggio adjusting details of the composition. They are evidence of work on this object, not proof of the popular claim that he had no plan before touching canvas.[1]
The Mattei Commission
The National Gallery of Ireland records a payment of 125 scudi for a painting made for Marchese Ciriaco Mattei in Rome in 1602. The surviving account-book entry is dated 2 January 1603; it records payment for a picture of Christ taken in the garden, while the Gallery dates the painting itself to the end of 1602. A payment date and a making date answer different questions and need not be identical.[1][6] Mattei's patronage also includes the London Supper at Emmaus, made the previous year, and a Saint John the Baptist now in the Capitoline collection. The three works differ in subject and setting but share a private Roman patronage context.[1][3]
The Mattei paper trail continued after Ciriaco's death. In an Uffizi publication that surveys the archival evidence, Maria Sframeli reports the painting in his son Giovanni Battista's 1616 inventory and its bequest to cousin Paolo in 1624. She also notes Giovanni Pietro Bellori's later notices at the Mattei palace and a 1676 inventory that lists the original alongside a copy. This sequence helps explain how the composition could be copied while the family's painting was still present. Sframeli warns that later inventories do not always specify which entry is the original; a recurring title alone cannot follow one canvas securely through every room and generation.[9]
The early writers are not interchangeable witnesses. Papi notes that Giovanni Baglione mentioned three Caravaggio works for Ciriaco Mattei but omitted the Taking. Gaspare Celio's Roman guide, published in 1638 from earlier material, names a half-length Taking of Christ in the Mattei palace. Bellori later describes the subject in detail but assigns the commission to Asdrubale, Ciriaco's brother. The dated account-book payment identifies Ciriaco as the payer, so Bellori's description is useful evidence for the image's reception but does not overturn the commission record.[1][9]
It is useful to distinguish patronage from ownership today. Mattei commissioned the painting, but his descendants did not keep it permanently. Its later history led through Britain and Ireland before it reached the Jesuit house in Dublin. The current Dublin display does not turn the National Gallery of Ireland into the owner.[1]
The work also follows Caravaggio's public breakthrough in the Contarelli Chapel. In the Calling of Saint Matthew, an invitation enters a table group from the side. In The Taking of Christ, another decisive Gospel moment unfolds through close gestures, but now the bodies are crowded into a far narrower visual field. The comparison helps explain a developing narrative method without claiming that one painting is merely an exercise for the other.
Another Roman Taking of Christ
The Galleria Borghese owns an earlier painting of the arrest by Giuseppe Cesari, called the Cavalier d'Arpino. Its catalogue dates the small oil-on-copper work to about 1598 and describes a fuller sequence than Caravaggio's: Peter attacks Malchus in the foreground, a nearly naked young man escapes at the side, and both moon and torch illuminate the scene. Caravaggio also includes a fleeing youth, but suppresses Peter's separate attack and pushes the kiss and seizure together. The comparison shows how selective his 1602 canvas is about which parts of the Gospel episode occupy the viewer's attention.[1][7]
The Borghese catalogue allows that Cesari's composition may have influenced Caravaggio, especially in its nocturnal setting and two kinds of light. That is a proposed artistic relationship, not a documented loan of the copper or proof that Caravaggio studied it. Cesari's torch actively lights his crowd; the Dublin lantern has a narrative role even though, as the Irish gallery observes, it does little to account for the main illumination. These differences give the light a different task in each painting.[1][7]
Rediscovery and Current Ownership
The painting was thought lost for many years. In 1990 it was recognised hanging in the dining room of the Jesuit House on Leeson Street, where it had been attributed to Gerrit van Honthorst, a later follower of Caravaggio. The Gallery's provenance traces its path from the Mattei family through an 1802 sale, Scottish collections and acquisition by Dr Marie Lea-Wilson, who gave it to the Jesuit house around 1930.[1]
The Gallery's fuller chain gives unusually specific market steps: Giuseppe Mattei sold the picture to William Hamilton Nisbet in January 1802; it descended at Biel House in Scotland, appeared at Edinburgh auctions in 1921 and 1922, and was later acquired by Marie Lea-Wilson. The record does not give the exact date of her purchase. These documented transfers explain how a Mattei painting could enter a Dublin religious house under another artist's name without asking readers to assume an unbroken public reputation.[1]
The Gallery's account of the rediscovery explains why a spelling error became an art-historical clue. By the later eighteenth century the Mattei family recorded the canvas under the name of the Dutch follower Gerrit van Honthorst, whose Italian nickname was normally Gherardo delle Notti. In their documents it appeared as “Gherardo della Notte.” The distinctive mistake continued into the 1802 sale record and onto a nameplate attached to a later frame. Following that repeated wording helped researchers connect the painting in Dublin with the canvas that had left the Mattei collection. A mistaken attribution can preserve useful provenance information even as it obscures the maker.[4]
The same owner history gives a tighter modern sequence than a simple “found in 1990.” Dr Marie Lea-Wilson acquired the painting in 1924 and brought it to Ireland; a Dublin receipt records restoration of its frame that year. She gave it to the Jesuits in the 1930s. After Father Noel Barber invited the Gallery to assess the house's pictures, conservator Sergio Benedetti recognised its potential in August 1990. Research, conservation and consultation continued for about three years before public unveiling on 16 November 1993. The recognition was an investigative process, not an instant final verdict formed from a dark dining-room view.[4]
The Gallery's 2018 annual report records a later international conservation discussion with specialists from London, Los Angeles, Rome and Florence. It reports concern about deteriorated varnish and the canvas support, while X-ray methods identified a limited palette including malachite, lead-tin yellow, azurite, indigo and vermilion. This was a condition and materials assessment, not an announcement that the ownership or attribution had changed. It gives readers a concrete reason why continued care matters even after the 1990s restoration.[5]
The Jesuit Community placed the painting on indefinite loan to the National Gallery of Ireland in 1993. The Gallery catalogues it as L.14702 and displays it to the public. “On indefinite loan” describes a long-term arrangement; it is not a purchase or transfer of title. The exact display location should be checked against the Gallery's current visitor information before travel.[1]
The rediscovery matters because the composition was known through copies and documentary records. A painting can survive while its authorship and identity remain hidden under another name. The 1990 recognition restored this object's place in the study of Caravaggio and Mattei patronage, but it does not erase the need to distinguish it from related versions and reproductions.
Copies, Versions and the Limits of Technical Evidence
The Gallery's owner record treats the Dublin canvas as Caravaggio's 1602 painting. Other images of the same subject and composition exist, so a photograph labelled Taking of Christ must be checked for collection, dimensions and provenance before it is used as this object. A shared composition does not establish shared authorship.[1]
Copying also occurred inside the patron's family. A Metropolitan Museum of Art study of the Mattei collection reports that Ciriaco's heir Giovanni Battista died in 1624 and that the Taking passed to his cousin Paolo, Asdrubale Mattei's son. The same study cites a documented copy commissioned by Asdrubale in 1626. That record demonstrates demand for the composition while the family still possessed the Caravaggio; it does not identify every surviving version with the copyist's canvas.[8]
The 1626 painter can be named: Giovanni di Attilio was commissioned for 12 scudi to make Asdrubale's copy, according to the Mattei research summarised in the Uffizi publication and by the Lithuanian National Museum of Art.[9][10] Its modern identity is less certain. The Lithuanian museum's 2026 exhibition presents the Taking from the Odesa Museum of Western and Eastern Art as a separate object with a debated attribution; it reports that an influential hypothesis identifies the Odesa painting with di Attilio's early copy. That is a proposed match between a surviving canvas and a payment, not a name written on the 1626 document.[10]
The Odesa painting has its own later trail. The Lithuanian museum reports that collector Alexander Basilevsky acquired a Kiss of Judas in 1868 and that it entered the Odesa museum in 1899, then catalogued as a Caravaggio. This does not fill the gap back to the Mattei family. It also records the canvas's theft in 2008, recovery in Berlin after damage and subsequent conservation. Those events belong to the Odesa object, not the Dublin painting that came through Scotland and Marie Lea-Wilson.[4][10]
The same museum's October 2026 research notice says its conservation centre examined the Odesa canvas with X-rays, ultraviolet and infrared imaging. The examination revealed compositional changes, later overpainting and restoration traces. These are material findings about that particular surface, but the notice announces a specialist presentation of the results rather than a final attribution. A revision in a painting can be relevant evidence without proving that its maker was Caravaggio; the identity of the artist still requires the image, materials and provenance to be assessed together.[11]
There is a third, distinct painting in the discussion. Gianni Papi's introduction to the Uffizi's 2019 restoration publication calls its Florentine Taking a non-autograph copy. He acknowledges strong passages, including the soldier's armour, but points to the treatment of face contours and drapery as reasons against assigning the whole work to Caravaggio. Sframeli's accompanying study traces the copy in Florentine records by the eighteenth century, while noting a gap in its earlier route. Its restoration and valuable history make it worth studying; neither makes it the Dublin canvas or the documented 1626 di Attilio copy.[9]
This matters when a second painting is presented as the lost Mattei original. The 1603 payment establishes a commission and the 1626 record establishes a later copy. Neither document, by itself, names the present-day location of every canvas with the design. The Dublin picture's owner record combines its Mattei-to-Nisbet provenance with the physical painting studied after 1990. Claims for another version need their own chain of evidence, including how its surface and history relate to those records.[1][8]
The visible changes in the paint layers support understanding of Caravaggio's process. They do not by themselves identify every figure or settle every later copy. Provenance, technical examination and quality must be considered together. The same caution applies to the lantern bearer: the self-portrait reading is part of the Gallery's interpretation, while ownership and date are supported by different kinds of record.[1]
Continue through the artist guide and paintings directory. The painting technique guide places this canvas's revisions alongside evidence from other works without generalising from one example.
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 Taking of Christ 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 Taking of Christ?
It is on indefinite loan from the Jesuit Community of Leeson Street to the National Gallery of Ireland in Dublin. The Gallery's object number is L.14702.[1]
Who commissioned it?
The Roman Marchese Ciriaco Mattei commissioned the painting in 1602. The Gallery records a payment of 125 scudi.[1]
Is the man with the lantern Caravaggio?
The National Gallery of Ireland identifies him as a self-portrait. It is a considered interpretation of a likeness, not a documented sitting record, so the identification should remain qualified.[1]
Who is fleeing at the left?
The Gallery identifies the young man running from the arrest as John the Evangelist.[1]
When was the painting rediscovered?
It was recognised in 1990 in the dining room of the Jesuit House on Leeson Street, Dublin, where it had been attributed to Gerrit van Honthorst.[1]
References
- National Gallery of Ireland, The Taking of Christ, L.14702.
- The Bible, Mark 14:43–50, King James Version.
- National Gallery, London, The Supper at Emmaus, NG172.
- National Gallery of Ireland, provenance and rediscovery history of The Taking of Christ.
- National Gallery of Ireland, 2018 annual report, conservation examination of The Taking of Christ.
- Conrad Rudolph and Steven F. Ostrow, “Isaac Laughing: Caravaggio, non-traditional imagery and traditional identification,” Art History 24, no. 5, 2001, pp. 648–49.
- Galleria Borghese, Giuseppe Cesari, Taking of Christ, catalogue entry.
- Keith Christiansen, Valentin de Boulogne: Beyond Caravaggio, Metropolitan Museum of Art, 2016, pp. 152–53.
- Gianni Papi and Maria Sframeli, sample chapters from La cattura di Cristo da Caravaggio: un recupero per le Gallerie degli Uffizi (2019), pp. 17–19 and 65–67; the publication concerns a separate Florentine copy and reviews Mattei documents.
- Lithuanian National Museum of Art, The Caravaggio Question: The Painting The Taking of Christ, 2026 exhibition account of the Odesa painting and the proposed di Attilio identification.
- Lithuanian National Museum of Art, 2026 research conference notice, reporting the Odesa canvas's X-ray, ultraviolet and infrared examination and the limits of attribution from those observations.
- Annotated image source: Wikimedia Commons, File:The Taking of Christ-Caravaggio (c.1602).jpg, high-resolution reproduction used for the annotated details.
