True Caravaggio? St. Francis in Prayer at the Boston Museum of Fine Arts

There's a brief, small, Caravaggio exhibit being held in Boston’s Museum of Fine Arts this spring. They have two known works by the painter and two that are attributed to him, and are asking the public about what does or doesn’t make these paintings authentic by tweeting their opinions with the hashtag “#truecaravaggio”. I'll be flying out to Boston in a few weeks to see it. I’m only a hack – a self-taught art history buff who’s spent some time in Rome and who has a particular interest in Caravaggio, the 17th century Italian painter, but here goes.

St. Francis in Prayer, by Caravaggio (?) This is one of the 'attributed' ones. (I refer to it several times below.)


Here’s one of the paintings from the Boston exhibition they’re asking us to analyze. I’ve seen it before, in Rome, but it’s not one of his more stunning works; as Caravaggio paintings go, I find this one rather ho-hum. It’s also missing a lot of his trademarks (you’ll see them in some of the painting examples to follow). Where’s the dramatic swath of red curtain or drapery? Where’s the lovely play of light on bare skin that Caravaggio is so good at? There’s a particularly good opportunity for him to paint dirty bare feet here too, which he seemed to love to do, and yet he didn’t bother with that. And no one has been beheaded here either (at least recently).


Judith Beheading Holofernes, by Caravaggio. See the dramatic red curtain? Oh yes, and check out the beheading. He liked to paint both of these things.

So for all the typical Caravaggio things that aren’t here, what is here to make art historians think the St. Francis is one of his paintings? Well, we do have a skull (he was rather fond of those, as seen in his paintings of St. Jerome in Meditation, St. Jerome writing, and another version of St. Francis in Meditation). St. Francis himself does look quite a bit like the same St. Francis Caravaggio painted in his much lovelier painting St. Francis of Assisi in Ecstasy (see below)- same trimmed beard, facial wrinkles, and haircut fringe. The robe is a similar colour and is tied with a rope here as well (but then all Capuchin monks robes look like this). And the angled cross and rock does remind me a little of his Crucifixion of St. Peter masterpiece. There’s the dramatic lighting of a Caravaggio painting here, with light coming from one source on one side, and a dark background, and a very simple halo on the central figure like the one he gave the Madonna of Lareto. He’s put a patch on the shoulder of the monk’s robe to draw your eye away from the central action in the painting (according to Caravaggio author Fried), just like he did with St. Thomas in the Incredulity of St. Thomas painting or the disciple on the left in the first Supper at Emmaus painting he did.


Crucifixion of St. Peter, by Caravaggio. Note the rock, and the angled cross, the swath of red, and the lovely play of light on skin from the single light source. Also note the unusual composition where we see people’s backs and dirty feet.

But I find the composition of St. Francis in Prayer….boring. (Sorry, whoever wrote in ArtDaily that this was a ‘profoundly moving’ image, but I disagree.) Normally we’re seeing a different angle in a Caravaggio painting – someone’s back (Cardsharps, Musicians, Rest on the Flight into Egypt , Calling of St. Matthew, or Crucifixion of St. Peter, above) or we are in the middle of the action (Taking of Christ, Sacrifice of Isaac), or something’s at least about to fall off a ledge (Entombment, Supper at Emmaus, seen below.). I realize this is meant to be a solitary, thoughtful work, but even so – it just seems so….brown. Caravaggio was more of a show off than this, wasn’t he? The painting makes me think of a cheesy bridal portrait where the photographer asks the bride to look at her flowers. And is he licking his lips while looking at the skull? I suppose it’s a good thing I’m headed to Boston to see this in person again because I think St. Francis looks rather more hungry than pensive.


Supper at Emmaus, by Caravaggio. Again, note dramatic light and shadows and the bits of red. But also, the patch on the elbow of the left disciple and how the fruit bowl is about to fall off the table – classic Caravaggio touches.

Complicating the authenticity of this particular St. Francis in Prayer painting as a Caravaggio is the fact that I’ve read that it was copied frequently. (And just before its inclusion in this Boston exhibition, this painting appeared alongside another, almost identical version of it in a small exhibition at the College of William and Mary, in Virginia, although that painting is unfortunately not part of the Boston exhibition I’m going to see.) I’ve read that the version I’m going to see in Boston is thought to be the original because after undergoing x-rays, they can see that the figure in it was originally painted a little smaller and the hand holding the skull was originally painted in a slightly different position (and obviously, a copier wouldn’t copy that). However, what’s to say that Caravaggio didn’t copy his own painting and they’re both by his hand? He was known to do that (Fortune Teller and John the Baptist being obvious examples). And again, I must ask, why was this particular painting of Caravaggio’s frequently copied? I wonder if it could be related to something as simple as cost and ease – there aren’t many colours to mix when you’re painting something very monotone like this, and in the 17th Century, that could have been a consideration for many painters (Caravaggio himself included.)

Another complication about this painting is the approximate date it was done. John T. Spike, a Caravaggio specialist and one of the curators of the recent exhibit in Virigina dates it to 1595 in his book, but everything else I read suggests it was likely done in or around 1603. There’s no record at any point of him doing the painting (as there sometimes has been with his other works), and except for once, Carvaggio never signed any of his works- so it can be tough to tell. Several other authors of Caravaggio books (Fried, Vodret, Graham-Dixon, Robb) all consider it more likely made on the later date because of the one record that does exist, a note from the libel trial of someone who lent Caravaggio a monk’s robe and had it returned by him in 1603. But this kind of time stamp ‘evidence’ seems a bit thin, since we know the St. Francis of Assisi in Ecstasy painting he did was dated 1595 and uses the same robes.

St. Francis of Assisi in Ecstasy, by Caravaggio. See how similar the monk looks to the painting we're analyzing? But I much prefer this painting.

No matter which date it was painted, it is interesting to note that Shakespeare wrote Hamlet in roughly the same time period. And Hamlet, amongst other things, features a (now famous) speech in which the protagonist typically holds a skull, exactly like this, saying, “Alas poor Yorick! I knew him…”

I could say the same thing, but about Caravaggio – “I knew him” – at least I thought I did. Is this St. Francis in Prayer painting by him? I’m really not sure. But I can’t wait to see it again in Boston.