CARAVAGGIO
(b. 1571, Caravaggio, d. 1610, Porto Ercole)

Boy Peeling a Fruit

c. 1593
Oil on canvas, 76 x 64 cm
Fondazione di Studi di Storia dell'Arte Roberto Longhi, Florence

This is probably a copy from a lost original. There are several other copies (e.g. in Hampton Court, in the Sabin collection, London) but all of these copies are derived from an original by Caravaggio. In none of them does the boy peel a pear, as sources indicate, but another fruit, perhaps a nectarine; the same fruit lies on the table before the boy. There is a remarkable resemblance between the facial types of these copies and those of the angel in the St Francis (Hartford) and the boy on the left in the Musicians at the Metropolitan Museum, New York.