Getty Museum, Getty Center
The J. Paul Getty Museum has announceda rare exhibition of three celebrated works by the great Italian painter Michelangelo Merisi da Caravaggio (1571-1610), on loan from the Galleria Borghese in Rome, home to the largest collection of Caravaggio’s paintings in the world. Caravaggio: Masterpieces from the Galleria Borghese will be on view at the Getty Center from November 21, 2017 through February 18, 2018.
November 21, 2017 – February 18, 2018
According to Timothy Potts, director of the J. Paul Getty Museum, “These three masterpieces are among Caravaggio’s best-known paintings, and we are extremely grateful to the Galleria Borghese for sharing them with our public. Caravaggio’s revolutionary genius made him one of the most important and beloved figures in European art history. The opportunity to see three of his most renowned works alongside the exceptional 17th-century Italian masterpieces in our own collection is an event not to be missed.”
One of the most admired painters in history, Caravaggio developed a boldly naturalistic style that employed striking theatrical compositions and emphasized the common humanity of his protagonists. His art was both widely celebrated and highly controversial among his contemporaries and remained influential for centuries afterward.
The three paintings presented in the exhibition exemplify the crucial stages in Caravaggio’s short but intense career (he died at age 39).
![Boy with a Basket of Fruit-Caravaggio (1593).jpg]()
Boy with a Basket of Fruit, about 1593-94. Caravaggio (Italian, 1571-1610). Oil on canvas. Ministero de Beni e delle Attività Culturali e del Turismo–Galleria Borghese.
Boy with a Basket of Fruit (ca. 1593-94) represents the beginning of the artist’s career when he moved from Lombardy to Rome and first attracted attention as a painter of realistic genre scenes and still lifes.
![https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/4/4d/Saint_Jerome_Writing-Caravaggio_%281605-6%29.jpg]()
Saint Jerome (ca. 1605) portrays the saint as a scholar reading and annotating sacred passages in the dramatically spotlight manner that Caravaggio made famous.
![https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/6/60/Caravaggio_-_David_con_la_testa_di_Golia.jpg]()
In David with the Head of Goliath (ca. 1610), painted at the end of the artist’s career in his more somber and expressive later style, Caravaggio included his own features in Goliath’s head, purportedly in penance for his having committed a murder in May 1606. All three paintings were acquired by Cardinal Scipione Borghese, a nephew of Pope Paul V, who knew Caravaggio personally and was one of his primary patrons.
Saint Jerome, about 1605-6. Caravaggio (Italian, 1571-1610). Oil on canvas. Ministero dei Beni e delle Attività Culturali e del Turismo–Galleria Borghese.
Saint Jerome (ca. 1605) portrays the saint as a scholar reading and annotating sacred passages in the dramatically spotlight manner that Caravaggio made famous.
In David with the Head of Goliath (ca. 1610), painted at the end of the artist’s career in his more somber and expressive later style, Caravaggio included his own features in Goliath’s head, purportedly in penance for his having committed a murder in May 1606. All three paintings were acquired by Cardinal Scipione Borghese, a nephew of Pope Paul V, who knew Caravaggio personally and was one of his primary patrons.
“Caravaggio continues to exert tremendous influence on art today. His exceptional combination of truth to life and drama, and that famous chiaroscuro, gave birth not only to a new style of painting, but also inspired generations of painters with his psychological naturalism,” said Davide Gasparotto, senior curator of paintings at the Getty Museum. “These rare loans are prime examples of Caravaggio’s exceptional talent and innovation.”
The exhibition at the Getty Museum is the first part of an international exhibition program on Caravaggio aimed at promoting the Caravaggio Research Institute, an international research project on the artist, conceived by Anna Coliva, director of the Galleria Borghese and supported by the Roman House FENDI through a three-year partnership with the Roman museum.
TheGalleria Borghese preserves the collection assembled by Cardinal Scipione Caffarelli Borghese (1577-1633), considered the most beautiful collection in the world. The extraordinary Villa that houses the museum itself is an embodiment of the history and development of Italian collecting between the 17th- and 19th- centuries. The artworks are still housed in the place that was planned and created for it, in a kind of dream of a museum ante litteram, integrated with its decoration involving marbles, inlays, mosaics, stuccowork, and insertions of antiquity.
The Museum’s mission is to preserve, promote and study the Collection, enhancing research and cultural development within the national and international community.