Painted in the last year of Caravaggio's life, almost certainly in Naples, this work is thought to have been sent to Cardinal Scipione Borghese as a plea for pardon from the murder charge that had forced the artist into exile. The victorious young David gazes with melancholic pity at the severed head of Goliath — universally recognised as Caravaggio's own self-portrait, and thus a shocking image of the artist as the vanquished sinner. The tenebrist staging, with a single beam striking the figures against black, is the painter's final expression of his revolutionary light.

Exhibition Venue

Galleria Borghese

Roma Capitale, Italy