David with the head of Goliath

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David with the head of Goliath: Caravaggio

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Art Type: Oil Painting
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Caravaggio Oil Painting - David with the head of Goliath

Keywords: David, head, Goliath

Work Overview: David with the head of Goliath
Italian: David e Golia
Artist Caravaggio
Year 1599
Medium Oil on canvas
Dimensions 110 cm × 91 cm (43 in × 36 in)
Location Prado

David and Goliath (or David with the Head of Goliath or David Victorious over Goliath) is a painting by the Italian Baroque master Caravaggio (1571–1610). It was painted in about 1599, and is held in the Museo del Prado, Madrid. Two later versions of the same theme are currently to be seen in Kunsthistorisches Museum, Vienna (David with the Head of Goliath), and in Rome's Galleria Borghese (David with the Head of Goliath).

The David and Goliath in the Prado was painted in the early part of the artist's career, while he was a member of the household of Cardinal Francesco Maria Del Monte. It shows the Biblical David as a young boy (in accordance with the Bible story) fastening the head of the champion of the Philistines, the giant Goliath, by the hair. The light catches on David's leg, arm and flank, on the massive shoulders from which Goliath's head has been severed, and on the head itself, but everything else is dark. Even David's face is almost invisible in the shadows. A wound on Goliath's forehead shows where he has been felled by the stone from David's sling. The overwhelming impression is of some action intensely personal and private - no triumph, no armies, no victory.[citation needed]

Caravaggio originally showed Goliath's face fixed in wild-eyed open-mouthed terror, tongue rolling, eyeballs swivelled to the edges of the sockets[citation needed]. In the finished painting the melodrama is banished: the drama is transferred from Goliath to the quietly efficient David, his face almost hidden, intent on his work with his hands in his enemy's hair, kneeling almost casually on the man's torso.

This painting and two others done at about the same time – the first version of Sacrifice of Isaac and the first John the Baptist – were taken to Spain shortly after they were made, where they were frequently copied and made a deep impression on art in that country.

The Bible story (Samuel 1:17) depicted here corresponds to the moment when, as a young shepherd, David kills Goliath, the giant, with his sling and cuts off his head to triumphantly exhibit it. The episode of tying the giant’s tresses to reveal his head has no iconographic precedent and is not explicitly mentioned in the Bible, making this work yet another example of Caravaggio’s originality and independence.

This painting is first listed in an inventory of the Buen Retiro Palace in Madrid in 1794. Its previous history is unknown but it is thought, with some reservation, to be from the collection of Juan Bautista Crescenzi. This collector with a known predilection for modern artists-that is, naturalists- arrived in Madrid in 1617 and died there in 1635. Alternatively, it may have been brought to Spain by the Count of Villamediana, who was in Italy between 1611 and 1615. According to Bellori, he owned a David by Caravaggio. Finally, though less likely, it could be the David of Caravaggio that Monsignor Galeotto Rospigliosi left in his will in 1643. The painting’s presence in Spain is borne out by some period copies, all of which were made in a Spanish context.

During the 19th century, this canvas was attributed to the school of Caravaggio, and while it was later included in that master’s catalog, some critics considered it an ancient copy of a lost original. Caravaggio’s authorship was finally demonstrated by Mina Gregori, who published an X-ray of it that shows the first version of the giant’s head, with a dramatic expression, bulging eyes and a gaping mouth whose terrifying appearance recalls Medusa (Florence, Galleria degli Uffizi) and Holofernes (Rome, Galleria Nazionale d’Arte Antica), two paintings in which Caravaggio successfully expresses the horror of physical pain. This expression may have been changed because that painter’s client considered it excessively violent. In any case, the X-ray certifies that the canvas is an original Caravaggio. Attention has been drawn to the expressive containment of the head in the shadows, which contrasts with the customary image of David as winner, as well as the tight composition, which resembles no other work by this artist except for Narcissus (Rome, Galleria Nazionale d’Arte Antica), with its geometric scheme- based, here, on a rectangle.

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