The painting was made for, and is still housed in, the church of Pio Monte della Misericordia in Naples. Originally, it was meant to be seven separate panels around the church; however,
Caravaggio combined all seven works of mercy in one composition which became the church's altarpiece. The painting is better seen from "il coretto" (the little choir) in the first floor.
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Year 1607
Medium Oil on canvas
Dimensions 390 × 260 cm (150 × 100 in)
Location Pio Monte della Misericordia, Naples
The painting was discovered in a private collection in 1959. The early Caravaggio biographer
Giovanni Bellori, writing in 1672, mentions a Salome with the Head of John the Baptist sent by the artist to the Grand
Master of the Knights of Malta in the hope of regaining favour after having been expelled from the Order in 1608.
It seems likely, however, that Bellori was referring to a different painting by Caravaggio of the same subject
(see Salome with the Head of John the Baptist at the Royal Palace of Madrid). The handling and the raking light link
this painting to works done in Naples during the artist's brief stay in the city during 1606–1607, an impression confirmed
by the balances between Salome and the Virgin in the Madonna of the Rosary, and between the executioner holding the
head of the Baptist and one of the two torturers in Christ at the Column and The Flagellation of Christ.
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Year 1607
Medium Oil on canvas
Dimensions 91.5 × 106.7 cm (36.0 × 42.0 in)
Location National Gallery, London
The painting can be compared with the David with the Head of Goliath in the Galleria Borghese, which dates from either 1607 or 1609–10. The two are very similar—Caravaggio frequently explored a subject in multiple variations,
most notably his many versions of John the Baptist—but the Vienna painting is less dark in mood, the David more triumphant than the introspective and oddly compassionate David of the Borghese, and the head of Goliath, widely accepted as a self-portrait
in the Borghese work, is more generic.
The model for David in both versions appears to be a more mature version of the pubescent Cupid of Amor Vincit Omnia and the Capitoline and Pamphilij John the Baptist, all painted around 1602.
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Year 1607
Medium Oil on canvas
Dimensions90.5 × 116.5 cm (35.6 × 45.9 in)
LocationKunsthistorisches Museum, Vienna
The Madonna is seated on a throne, and seems to give assent with a wave of the hand to Saint
Dominic who is dressed in his usual habit and holding a rosary. The faithful turn to him for grace, kneeling, with a donor
portrait at far left, of a man in black with a ruff. On the right is St Peter Martyr with a large scar on his forehead (just like
Caravaggio who was wounded in the head a few months earlier in the scuffle with Ranuccio Tommasoni and still had a visible scar),
which indicates the Virgin who is out of the picture. Behind him are other Dominicans.
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Year 1607
Medium Oil on canvas
Dimensions 364.5 × 249.5 cm (143.5 × 98.2 in)
LocationKunsthistorisches Museum, Vienna
Caravaggio's patron Vincenzo Giustiniani was an intellectual as well as a collector, and late in life
he wrote a paper about art in which he identified twelve grades of accomplishment. In the highest class he named just two artists, Caravaggio
and Annibale Carracci, as those capable of combining realism and style in the most accomplished manner. This Crowning with Thorns
illustrates what Giustiniani meant: the cruelty of the two torturers hammering home the thorns is depicted as acutely observed reality, as is
the bored slouch of the official leaning on the rail as he oversees the death of God; meanwhile Christ is suffering real pain with patient endurance;
all depicted within a classical composition of contrasting and intersecting horizontals and diagonals.
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Year 1602–1604 or 1607
Medium Oil on canvas
Dimensions127 × 165.5 cm (50 × 65.2 in)
Location Kunsthistorisches Museum, Vienna
The Flagellation of Christ had long been a popular subject in religious art—and in contemporary religious practice, where the church encouraged self-flagellation as
a means by which the faithful might enter into the suffering of Christ. Caravaggio would have had in mind the famous fresco by Sebastiano del Piombo in the church of San Pietro in
Montorio in Rome. Caravaggio has reworked Piombo's composition by drastically reducing the picture space so that the sculptural figures seem presented on a shallow stage. He has,
however, retained Piombo's sense of the flagellation as a kind of sadistic ballet, with the figures arranged rhythmically across the canvas. Caravaggio's painting introduces an acutely
observed reality into the scene: Christ is in this drooping pose, not because it might seem graceful, but because the torturer on the right is kicking the back of his knee while the figure
on the left holds his hair tightly in his fist.
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Year 1607
Medium Oil on canvas
Dimensions 286 × 213 cm (113 × 84 in)
Location Museo di Capodimonte
This is one of two versions of the Flagellation of Christ by Caravaggio painted late in 1606 or early in 1607,
soon after his arrival in Naples. The painting shows the flagellation of Christ following his arrest and trial and before his crucifixion.
The scene was traditionally depicted in front of a column, possibly alluding to the judgement hall of Pilate. The snub-nosed torturer
on the far right is recognisably the same figure who modelled as one of the torturers in The Flagellation of Christ, and as the executioner
in Salome with the Head of John the Baptist.
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Year 1607
Medium Oil on canvas
Dimensions 134.5 × 175.4 cm (53.0 × 69.1 in)
LocationMusée des Beaux Arts, Rouen