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Lot Essay
The present painting, likely datable to the early seventeenth century, follows Caravaggio's famed composition of a Boy peeling a fruit, of which at least ten early versions survive today, including examples in the Fondazione Roberto Longhi, Florence; Ishizuka Research Institute, Tokyo; and Royal Collection Trust, Hampton Court Palace. The Royal Collection version is generally considered to be the prime (for a detailed study of Caravaggio's composition, see B. Savina, Caravaggio tra originali e copie, Foligno, 2013, pp. 93-99, 168-171). Here, the unknown artist embellished Caravaggio's composition by adding a landscape seen through a window in the background.
Painted just after his arrival in Rome, Caravaggio’s Boy peeling a fruit may be the artist’s earliest known work. Already, we see in it many of the hallmarks that would revolutionize the art world, both in Italy and abroad, and would make him one of the most innovative and recognizable artists in history. A young boy, seemingly painted from life, sits at a table peeling a Seville or Bergamot orange that he has selected from a bunch of fruit and shafts of wheat laid out before him. The composition is conceived with the dramatic chiaroscuro that is one of the defining characteristics of Caravaggio’s style, which would fascinate and inspire generations of painters from Jusepe de Ribera, Artemisia Gentileschi and Gerard van Honthorst. Caravaggio's composition presents the viewer with an intimate scene of contemplation. Lyrical in its simplicity and elegance, his painting also stands as one of the earliest examples of a new genre, combining a half-length figure with a still life of fruit.
Caravaggio’s biographer Giulio Mancini (1559-1630) records that the young artist painted this composition while he was living in the house of Monsignor Pandolfo Pucci da Recanati, whom the artist contemptuously dubbed 'Monsignor Insalata' due to his miserly habit of serving the young artist meals consisting entirely of salad. Mancini writes that during this time, Caravaggio painted copies of devotional images and works intended to be sold on the open market, including 'a boy who cries at being bitten by a lizard that he holds in his hand, and afterwards a boy who peels a pear with a knife' ('e per vendere, un putto che piange per essere stato morso da un racano che tiene in mano, e dopo pur un putto che mondava una pera con il cortello'; G. Mancini, Considerazioni sulla pittura, c. 1617-21). There must have been some uncertainty on Mancini’s part about the latter of these paintings, as in one of the two manuscripts of the Considerazioni, he refers to the fruit as an apple ('una mela'). A plausible explanation for this discrepancy is that, having found a successful composition, Caravaggio painted multiple versions to meet the market demand, a practice that he would abandon later in his career.
Painted just after his arrival in Rome, Caravaggio’s Boy peeling a fruit may be the artist’s earliest known work. Already, we see in it many of the hallmarks that would revolutionize the art world, both in Italy and abroad, and would make him one of the most innovative and recognizable artists in history. A young boy, seemingly painted from life, sits at a table peeling a Seville or Bergamot orange that he has selected from a bunch of fruit and shafts of wheat laid out before him. The composition is conceived with the dramatic chiaroscuro that is one of the defining characteristics of Caravaggio’s style, which would fascinate and inspire generations of painters from Jusepe de Ribera, Artemisia Gentileschi and Gerard van Honthorst. Caravaggio's composition presents the viewer with an intimate scene of contemplation. Lyrical in its simplicity and elegance, his painting also stands as one of the earliest examples of a new genre, combining a half-length figure with a still life of fruit.
Caravaggio’s biographer Giulio Mancini (1559-1630) records that the young artist painted this composition while he was living in the house of Monsignor Pandolfo Pucci da Recanati, whom the artist contemptuously dubbed 'Monsignor Insalata' due to his miserly habit of serving the young artist meals consisting entirely of salad. Mancini writes that during this time, Caravaggio painted copies of devotional images and works intended to be sold on the open market, including 'a boy who cries at being bitten by a lizard that he holds in his hand, and afterwards a boy who peels a pear with a knife' ('e per vendere, un putto che piange per essere stato morso da un racano che tiene in mano, e dopo pur un putto che mondava una pera con il cortello'; G. Mancini, Considerazioni sulla pittura, c. 1617-21). There must have been some uncertainty on Mancini’s part about the latter of these paintings, as in one of the two manuscripts of the Considerazioni, he refers to the fruit as an apple ('una mela'). A plausible explanation for this discrepancy is that, having found a successful composition, Caravaggio painted multiple versions to meet the market demand, a practice that he would abandon later in his career.