Borghese Gallery / David with the Head of Goliath

Michelangelo Merisi called Caravaggio -

David with the Head of Goliath (1609-10) oil on canvas cm. 1,25x1,01

On May 1606 Caravaggio was accused of murder and fled from Rome to distant lands (Naples, Sicily, Malta) to escape the price that had been placed on his head. His self-portrait as Goliath's severed head, held by David his executioner, was sent to the papal court in 1610 as a kind of painted petition for pardon. In fact pardon was granted, but did not reach Caravaggio before he died in Porto Ercole (on the italian coast). In his David with the Head of Goliath Caravaggio pays tribute to the rapid brushstrokes Titian adopts in his later works and surrounds the youth's face with a kind of luminous halo that shines out from the dark, earthy tints surrounding the figure.