Caravaggio Paintings

About Caravaggio

Caravaggio. Michelangelo Merisi da Caravaggio, known mononymously by the name of the town, was an Italian painter active in Rome for a significant portion of his artistic life. He was born Michelangelo Merisi in 1571 and died in 1610, so the whole of this body of work sits at the turn of the 17th century, in the Baroque period it helped to start. He began his apprenticeship in Milan in 1584, which is the first fixed date in the record, so Milan is where the training happened and Rome is where the reputation grew. During the final four years of his life he moved between Naples, Malta and Sicily, and Rome, Milan and Naples are all in Italy while Malta is not, which tells you how far the last stretch took him.

Art critics describe the work as combining a realistic observation of the human state, both physical and emotional, with a dramatic use of lighting, and that combination had a formative influence on Baroque painting. The studio names for it are chiaroscuro, the interplay of light and shadow, and tenebrism, extreme contrasts of light and dark. In practice it means the light arrives from one side and everything else is given up to the dark, which is why the tax collector at the table, the boy recoiling from the lizard and the severed head in the basket all read as things happening in a room rather than as scripture arranged for an altar. That realism is also what makes these hard to paint well, and it is where most of the interest in Caravaggio's surface still sits.

Series and periods

Caravaggio's titles fall into a few clear groups, and they read better that way than by date, since the years are thin in the record and the subjects are not. Every group below links straight to the products inside it, and a title can sit in two groups at once.

• The Contarelli Chapel, 1599 to 1602: The Calling of Saint Matthew was completed in 1599 and 1600 for the Contarelli Chapel in the church of the French congregation, San Luigi dei Francesi in Rome, where it remains. It hangs there alongside two other canvases of Matthew by Caravaggio, The Martyrdom of Saint Matthew and The Inspiration of Saint Matthew of 1602, so the chapel is a set of three, and this store carries the two of them that are ordered most, plus the angel version of the evangelist. Titles here: Calling of Saint Matthew, The Martyrdom of Saint Matthew, Saint Matthew and the Angel.
• Religious and biblical scenes: the largest group here, the Gospel and Old Testament subjects this store has always listed first. Each one is staged as an event with witnesses in it rather than as an icon to kneel in front of, which is exactly what left them arguable in their own moment. Titles here: Conversion of Saint Paul, Nativity with Saint Francis and Saint Lawrence, Madonna of Loreto, Madonna of the Rosary, Resurrection of Lazarus, The Seven Works of Mercy, Mary Magdalen in Ecstasy.
• Deaths and martyrdoms: the hardest group to look at and the one the painter is known for. A death here gets the same low light as a supper, and the crowd around it is made of people you would recognize on a street, which is the whole argument of his realism put to the worst subject available. Titles here: The Death of the Virgin, Entombment of Christ, Flagellation of Christ, Crucifixion of Saint Andrew, Burial of Saint Lucy, Martyrdom of Saint Ursula, Beheading of Saint John the Baptist.
• Judith and Holofernes: the beheading of Holofernes by Judith is recounted in the deuterocanonical Book of Judith, and it is the subject of many paintings and sculptures from the Renaissance and Baroque periods. Judith, a beautiful Jewish widow, enters the tent of the Assyrian general under the guise of seduction as he prepares to destroy her home, the city of Bethulia. Titles here: Judith Beheading Holofernes.
• Portraits, heads and single figures: the portrait and figurative work, from a commissioned sitter in armor to the mythological head that gives the Medusa its name. One face and one light source is the whole picture in this group, and it is where you see how little he needed. Titles here: Portrait of Alof de Wignacourt, Medusa, Boy Bitten by a Lizard, John the Baptist (Reclining Baptist), Amor Victorious.
• Still life and fruit: the two table canvases, and the reason a painter of martyrdoms is quoted in every history of the genre. Both are inanimate subject matter given the same lighting as a beheading, which is why they never look decorative. Titles here: Basket of Fruit, Flowers and Fruit.

Most famous works

These are the Caravaggio titles people ask for most in this collection, ordered by the traffic each one draws and by what actually sells. Each name opens its own page, where you choose the size and decide on a frame. Every one is painted in oil after Caravaggio, to order, and no two hands read a brushstroke the same way.

• Calling of Saint Matthew: an oil painting by the Italian Baroque master Michelangelo Merisi da Caravaggio that depicts the moment Jesus Christ calls on the tax collector Matthew to follow him. It was completed in 1599 and 1600 for the Contarelli Chapel in the church of the French congregation, San Luigi dei Francesi in Rome, where it remains, and it is one of the two Caravaggio titles on our list of the 100 most famous paintings
• Judith Beheading Holofernes: the scene from the deuterocanonical Book of Judith, in which Judith, a beautiful Jewish widow, enters the tent of the Assyrian general Holofernes under the guise of seduction while he is preparing to destroy her home, the city of Bethulia. He passes out intoxicated, she decapitates him, and the head is taken away in a basket. The story was painted many times in the Renaissance and Baroque periods, and this is the version people come looking for
• Conversion of Saint Paul: Saul on the ground beside the horse at the instant of the conversion, with the light doing all the work that a sky full of angels does in other painters. The horse fills the upper half of the canvas and the man who used to be Saul is underneath it
• The Martyrdom of Saint Matthew: one of the two other canvases of Matthew that hang beside the Calling in the Contarelli Chapel in Rome. The killing is staged in the middle of a crowd that scatters, and the reach of the executioner's arm is the center of the composition
• Saint Matthew and the Angel: the evangelist at his writing with the angel leaning in over his shoulder, the quietest of the Matthew subjects
• Basket of Fruit: a basket set on a ledge at eye level, one of the two still life subjects he left, and studied ever since for the leaves that are already going dry at the edges
• Still Life with Flowers and Fruit: the fuller table piece, flowers and fruit together, commonplace objects given the same lighting as a martyrdom and the same refusal to flatter them
• Medusa: the severed head with the mouth open and the snakes still moving, one of the figurative pictures his name carries, and the only mythological face in the group
• The Death of the Virgin: the Virgin laid out with the mourners around her, painted as a death in a room with one red cloth hung above it and nothing else to soften the scene
• Mary Magdalen in Ecstasy: the Magdalen alone, head back, the whole picture carried by one shoulder and one face in the light, with the rest given to the dark
• Nativity with Saint Francis and Saint Lawrence: the Nativity with Saint Francis and Saint Lawrence kneeling beside it, a night subject with the figures coming forward out of the dark rather than posed in front of it
• The Seven Works of Mercy: the seven acts of mercy put into one crowded street scene instead of seven separate panels, which is why it reads like a night in a city and not like a diagram
• Entombment of Christ: the body of Christ lowered onto the stone, the weight of him carried by two men at the very front of the picture, close enough to be standing in the room with you
• Flagellation of Christ: Christ tied to the column with the men working around him, the flagellation given the light of an interrogation and none of the distance of an altarpiece
• Beheading of Saint John the Baptist: John the Baptist on the ground of a prison yard, the executioner reaching back for the knife, and a basin already held out for the head
• John the Baptist (Reclining Baptist): the Baptist lying down in the open with the red cloak beneath him, the quietest of the John the Baptist subjects in this collection
• Boy Bitten by a Lizard: a boy recoiling at the moment the lizard takes his finger, a study of the human state at its most physical, and the smallest subject here
• Portrait of Alof de Wignacourt and his Page: the Grand Master standing in armor with his page beside him, the one full commissioned portrait in this group and the most formal picture in it
• Madonna of Loreto: the Madonna and Child in a doorway with two pilgrims on their knees in the street, the soles of their feet turned toward us at the very front of the picture
• Madonna of the Rosary: also titled Madonna del Rosario, a large altar subject with the rosary passed down from the Virgin through the saints to the people at the bottom of the canvas
• Resurrection of Lazarus: Lazarus coming out of the tomb, the raising handled as a physical event with people pulling at the cloth and taking his weight
• Crucifixion of Saint Andrew: Andrew on the cross with the crowd below, one of the darkest canvases here and one of the hardest to light on a wall
• Burial of Saint Lucy: the burial of Lucy with the grave diggers filling the front of the canvas and the mourners pushed back behind them into an almost empty wall
• Martyrdom of Saint Ursula: Ursula at the instant of the arrow, the faces close together and the light down to almost nothing
• Amor Victorious: love standing over the instruments and the armor it has beaten, a mythological figure painted with the same realism as a street subject

Browse by subject

Caravaggio's subjects run through other collections of ours, and each one is a different door into the same painter. The originals are museum and church property today, and a museum does not lend, which is the whole reason people order a new painting of them.

• Baroque painting: 3,729 works, the painting of the Baroque cultural movement, often identified with Absolutism, the Counter Reformation and the Catholic Revival, though it took hold in Protestant and non-absolutist states across Western Europe too. His lighting shaped the Baroque that came after, so this is the Italian collection he sits at the head of.
• Religious subjects: 3,084 canvases, the visual representation of religious ideas and their relationship with humans, with sacred art the part of it made for worship and religious practice. The Matthew subjects, the two Madonnas, the Nativity, the Entombment and every one of the martyrdoms.
• Still life: 2,329 titles, the picture of mostly inanimate subject matter, the commonplace objects of a table or a studio, either natural or human-made. The Basket of Fruit and the flowers and fruit together, the two canvases that put him into the history of the genre.
• Fruit on a table: 511 pieces, The fruit on its own, which suits a kitchen or a dining room better than a gallery wall does.
• Portraits: 8,463 paintings, the genre whose intent is to represent a specific human subject, worked on commission for public and private persons or out of admiration for the sitter, and long kept as a state and family record. The Wignacourt portrait, the Medusa head on its shield and the boy with the lizard.
• Angels: 389 works, Saint Matthew and the Angel belongs here, with the angel leaning in over the writing.
• Horses: 700 canvases, the work of painters who specialize in the portrayal of animals. The horse standing over Saul in the Conversion of Saint Paul, which takes up more of that canvas than the saint does.
• Children: 2,170 titles, The boy who attends Wignacourt in the portrait and the boy with the lizard, the youngest faces in this group of titles.
• The 100 most famous paintings of all time: 2 canvases by Caravaggio sit on this list, our reading of the best known paintings in art history, the Calling of Saint Matthew and Judith Beheading Holofernes.

The full list of painters we reproduce in oil is on the artist index.

How each reproduction is painted

Nothing here is stock. When you order, an artist paints that title in oil on canvas in the size you picked, layer by layer, and you see a photograph of the finished painting and approve it before it leaves the studio. A Caravaggio is mostly dark, and the dark is the hard part: it has to stay transparent or the figure sinks into it, so these go to artists who build up thin layers and let each one dry before the next. The use of a single light source is the other half of the job, since the edge where the light stops is what the eye reads first. That is also why a print of one of these looks flat on a gallery wall: a photograph of a dark canvas has nothing under the surface, and nothing to catch a lamp in the room it is on display in. Seven sizes are available and the frame is optional, so the same picture can be a small study by a desk or the one thing on a wall. Shipping is free worldwide and returns stay open for 90 days.

Frequently asked questions

Which Caravaggio painting is the most famous?

The Calling of Saint Matthew. It is the title visitors open most here, and two Caravaggio titles sit on our list of the 100 most famous paintings: the Calling and Judith Beheading Holofernes. Both are museum or church property, which is why people order them painted.

What does The Calling of Saint Matthew show?

The moment Jesus Christ calls on the tax collector Matthew to follow him. It was completed in 1599 and 1600 for the Contarelli Chapel in the church of the French congregation, San Luigi dei Francesi in Rome, where it remains, and two other canvases of Matthew by Caravaggio hang beside it there.

Who was Caravaggio?

Michelangelo Merisi da Caravaggio, an Italian painter born Michelangelo Merisi in 1571 and dead in 1610. He was active in Rome for a significant portion of his artistic life, he began his apprenticeship in Milan in 1584, and in the final four years he moved between Naples, Malta and Sicily. Museums and churches across Italy hold most of what survives, and the record of the years between those cities is thin, which is why the subjects date these canvases better than any calendar does.

What are chiaroscuro and tenebrism?

Chiaroscuro is the dramatic interplay of light and shadow. Tenebrism means extreme contrasts of light and dark. Art critics describe his work as combining a realistic observation of the human state, both physical and emotional, with that kind of lighting, and it is the reason a Caravaggio looks lit by a single lamp in an otherwise empty room.

What is the story of Judith and Holofernes?

Judith, a beautiful Jewish widow, enters the tent of the Assyrian general Holofernes under the guise of seduction while he is preparing to destroy her home, the city of Bethulia. He passes out intoxicated, she decapitates him, and his head is taken away in a basket. The story is told in the deuterocanonical Book of Judith, and it was painted and sculpted many times over in the Renaissance and Baroque periods.

Where are the Caravaggio originals?

Some sit in a museum and some are still in the churches they were painted for. The Calling of Saint Matthew is not in a museum at all: it remains in the Contarelli Chapel in Rome, where it was installed in 1600. Where a museum does hold one, the museum is not going to lend it to you, and that is the plain reason hand-painted reproductions exist. A museum also hangs these with a great deal of air around them, which a room at home rarely has, so the size you choose matters more here than with a bright picture.

Which Caravaggio should I start with?

If you want the picture everyone knows, take the Calling of Saint Matthew. If you want the one that stops a room, take Judith or the Medusa. If you want the light without the blood, take the Basket of Fruit or the flowers and fruit. Milan came first and Rome is where the work landed, but the Naples, Malta and Sicily years are the late titles, and they are the darkest of them.

Are these original Caravaggio paintings?

No. Each one is a new painting, made by hand in oil on canvas after Caravaggio's composition. It is a reproduction, not a print, and not the original canvas.

What sizes and frames can I order?

Every Caravaggio reproduction here comes in seven sizes, with an optional frame. You see a photo of the finished oil painting and approve it before it ships, worldwide shipping is free, and returns stay open for 90 days.