''Boy with a Basket of Fruit'' is an oil on canvas painting generally ascribed to
Italian
Italian(s) may refer to:
* Anything of, from, or related to the people of Italy over the centuries
** Italians, an ethnic group or simply a citizen of the Italian Republic or Italian Kingdom
** Italian language, a Romance language
*** Regional Ita ...
Baroque master Michelangelo Merisi da
Caravaggio, created ''c.'' 1593. It is held in the
Galleria Borghese
The Galleria Borghese () is an art gallery in Rome, Italy, housed in the former Villa Borghese Pinciana. At the outset, the gallery building was integrated with its gardens, but nowadays the Villa Borghese gardens are considered a separate touris ...
, in
Rome
, established_title = Founded
, established_date = 753 BC
, founder = King Romulus (legendary)
, image_map = Map of comune of Rome (metropolitan city of Capital Rome, region Lazio, Italy).svg
, map_caption ...
.
Background
The painting dates from the time when Caravaggio, newly arrived in Rome from his native
Milan
Milan ( , , Lombard: ; it, Milano ) is a city in northern Italy, capital of Lombardy, and the second-most populous city proper in Italy after Rome. The city proper has a population of about 1.4 million, while its metropolitan city h ...
, was making his way in the competitive Roman art world. The model was his friend and companion, the Sicilian painter
Mario Minniti, at about 16 years old. The work was in the collection of
Giuseppe Cesari
Giuseppe Cesari (14 February 1568 – 3 July 1640) was an Italian Mannerist painter, also named Il Giuseppino and called ''Cavaliere d'Arpino'', because he was created ''Cavaliere di Cristo'' by his patron Pope Clement VIII. He was much patronize ...
, the Cavaliere d'Arpino, seized by Cardinal
Scipione Borghese
Scipione Borghese (; 1 September 1577 – 2 October 1633) was an Italian Cardinal, art collector and patron of the arts. A member of the Borghese family, he was the patron of the painter Caravaggio and the artist Bernini. His legacy is the establ ...
in 1607, and may therefore date to the period when Caravaggio worked for d'Arpino "painting flowers and fruits" in his workshop; but it may date from a slightly later period when Caravaggio and Minniti had left
Cavalier d'Arpino
Giuseppe Cesari (14 February 1568 – 3 July 1640) was an Italian Mannerist painter, also named Il Giuseppino and called ''Cavaliere d'Arpino'', because he was created ''Cavaliere di Cristo'' by his patron Pope Clement VIII. He was much patroniz ...
's workshop (January 1594) to make their own way selling paintings through the dealer Costantino. Certainly it cannot predate 1593, the year Minniti arrived in Rome. It is believed to predate more complex works from the same period (also featuring Minniti as a model) such as ''
The Fortune Teller'' and the ''
Cardsharps
A card sharp (also cardsharp, card shark or cardshark, sometimes hyphenated) is a person who uses skill and/or deception to win at poker or other card games. "Sharp" and "shark" spellings have varied over time and by region.
The label is no ...
'' (both 1594), the latter of which brought Caravaggio to the attention of his first important patron, Cardinal Francesco Maria Del Monte. Vittorio Sgarbi notes certain Murillesque portraiture qualities in the painting that could easily point to other painters in the Arpino workshop.
At one level the painting is a
genre
Genre () is any form or type of communication in any mode (written, spoken, digital, artistic, etc.) with socially-agreed-upon conventions developed over time. In popular usage, it normally describes a category of literature, music, or other for ...
piece designed to demonstrate the artist's ability to depict everything from the skin of the boy to the skin of a peach, from the folds of the robe to the weave of the basket. The fruit is especially exquisite, and Professor Jules Janick of the Department of Horticulture and Landscape Architecture at Purdue University, Indiana, has analysed them from a horticulturalist's perspective:
The basket ... contains a great many fruits, all in nearly perfect condition and including a bi-colored peach with a bright red blush; four clusters of grapes — two black, one red, and one "white;" a ripe pomegranate split open, disgorging its red seeds; four figs, two of them dead-ripe, black ones, both split and two light-colored; two medlars; three apples—two red, one blushed and the other striped, and one yellow with a russet basin and a scar; two branches with small pears, one of them with five yellow ones with a bright red cheek and the other, half-hidden, with small yellow, blushed fruits. There are also leaves showing various disorders: a prominent virescent grape leaf with fungal spots and another with a white insect egg mass resembling that of the oblique banded leaf roller (''Choristoneura rosaceana''), and peach leaves with various spots.
The analysis indicates that Caravaggio is being realistic. By capturing only what was in the fruit basket, he idealizes neither their ripeness nor their arrangement—yet almost miraculously, we are still drawn in to look at it, for the viewer it is very much a beautiful and exquisite subject.
See also
*
List of paintings by Caravaggio
The following is a list of paintings by the Italian artist Caravaggio, listed chronologically.Spike, John T. ''Caravaggio''. New York : Abbeville Press, 2001: p. 253–54
List of paintings
Footnotes
Further reading
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References
External links
Caravaggio's fruit (Professor Jules Janick)* The British-Canadian band Velcro Hooks open up their vide
"A Love Song to T. S. Eliot"with a remarkable "live" reproduction of ''Boy with a Basket of Fruit''.
*
{{DEFAULTSORT:Boy With A Basket Of Fruit
1590s paintings
Paintings by Caravaggio
Paintings in the Borghese Collection
Food and drink paintings