Caravaggio

Caravaggio (1571–1610) was born in Milan, trained under Simone Peterzano, and worked in Rome, Zagarolo, Naples and Valletta before dying at Porto Ercole at thirty-eight. In Rome he painted for Cardinal Francesco Maria del Monte, whose protection mattered to a career conducted largely at the edge of the law. He changed what a religious painting could look like. Working from live models and lighting them out of deep darkness, he gave saints and apostles the faces, hands and dirt of ordinary Roman life. Contemporaries found it contentious — commissions were refused for want of decorum — but the method spread across Europe within a generation, and painters from Utrecht to Naples worked in its shadow. Hendrick ter Brugghen, also in this collection, is among them. Five works here, including the Supper at Emmaus, the Rest on the Flight into Egypt, and the Madonna and Child with Saint Anne painted for the Palafrenieri and removed from St Peter's soon after installation.