The original, on canvas, ... x .... cm, long lost sight of, was acquired by the Kimbell Art Museum, Forth Worth, in 1987. One of Caravaggios most famous pictures, of which a copy is already recorded in 1621, the original was available to the public in Rome from at least the late 17th Century until almost the end of the 19th Century (see most recently, M. Grigori, Michelangelo Merisi da Caravaggio, exh. cat. Florence and Rome, 1991, pp. 96 ff). A list of copies is given by A. Mori, Caravaggio and his Copyists, 1976, pp. 104 ff, no 52

See illustration