David with the Head of Goliath

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