Vincenzo giustiniani e caravaggio biography

It used to exist in two versions, one in the Wildenstein Collection and another in the Hermitage Museum , St. A third version, which was kept for years at Badminton House , Gloucestershire, came to light in , and which today is understood to be the original version. The Hermitage and the Badminton House versions were exhibited together in at the Galleria Borghese.

Caravaggio's early biographer Giovanni Baglione gives the following description of a piece done by the artist for his patron Cardinal Francesco Del Monte :. E questo disse che fu il piu bel pezzo, che facesse mai. And this he said was the best piece that he ever painted. The painting exists in three versions. All show a boy with soft facial features and thick brown hair, accompanying himself on the lute as he sings a madrigal about love.

Caravaggio paintings

As in the Uffizi Bacchus , the artist places a table-top in front of the figure. In the Hermitage and Badminton House versions it is bare marble, with a violin on one side and a still life of flowers and fruit on the other. In the Wildenstein version the table is covered with a carpet and extended forwards to hold a tenor recorder , while the still life is replaced by a spinetta a small keyboard instrument and a caged songbird.

The musical instruments are valuable and probably came from Del Monte's personal collection.

Where was caravaggio born

The Hermitage and Badminton House versions show madrigals by Jacques Arcadelt — , and the visible text reads in part: "Vous savez que je vous aime et vous adore I was yours". The Wildenstein version shows songs by a native Florentine Francesco de Layolle on a text by Petrarch : Laisse le voile 'Let go the veil' and Pourquoi ne vous donnez-vous pas?

The flowers and damaged fruit, and the cracked body of the lute, suggest the theme of transience: love, like all things, is fleeting and mortal.