“Boy with a Basket of Fruit” by Caravaggio

A very special guest from Rome: Caravaggio’s Boy with a Basket of Fruit.

On loan from the Galleria Borghese, this masterpiece offers an exceptional insight into the early career of Michelangelo Merisi, the artist world-renowned as Caravaggio. After training in his native Lombardy, Caravaggio arrived in Rome carrying a tradition of “natural” painting that stretched back to Leonardo da Vinci. However, he combined those roots with a bold new style that changed everything, replacing polished perfection with the raw reality of the artist’s studio.

Look closely at the boy’s parted lips, his flushed ears, and the way his shirt slips off his shoulder. At that time, Roman art usually focused on idealized and perfect figures, but Caravaggio chose an entirely different path. He presents his model with startling honesty, inviting us to study the young man as we would examine the overripe fruit he holds. To show where this style came from, we have paired this painting with earlier works from Milan and pieces by a contemporary of Caravaggio, Annibale Carracci.

The exhibition also explores the enormous impact Caravaggio had on the artists who followed him in Rome. Finally, you will meet Scipione Borghese through a portrait drawing by Gianlorenzo Bernini. Scipione was the original owner of this painting and the legendary collector behind the Galleria Borghese itself.