Montepulciano (Italy), Paris. The corpus of Caravaggio’s works continues to grow. Three paintings have been attributed to Michelangelo Merisi (1571-1610) since 2021, including two in the space of 24 hours, on November 7 and 8. After Madrid where a Ecce Homo had been unearthed to everyone’s surprise in 2021 in an auction room, it is in Italy and France that fans of the maestro of chiaroscuro are now turning their gaze. We owe these two attributions to two eminent Caravaggio connoisseurs.
On November 7, art historian Gianni Papi revealed his during the conference “Identity represented at the beginning of the 17th century”, which was held at the Montepulciano Pinacoteca. A Portrait of young man (oil on canvas, 41 x 31 cm, (see ill.)) was sold at auction at Dorotheum in Vienna (Austria) in 2017 as a simple work of the Tuscan school of the 16th century. Gianni Papi has only announced his new attribution. Its arguments will be detailed when the conference proceedings are published.
The next day, Maria Cristina Terzaghi signed in the Italian daily La Repubblica an article revealing the identification of the lost original of the Young man with carafe of roses (an oil on canvas measuring 66 x 52.5 cm, (see ill.)). Only four copies were known until then. The information was, however, published last year by the Spanish magazine Ars Magazine and in the exhibition catalog Caravaggio 2025 at the Palazzo Barberini in Rome of which Maria Cristina Terzaghi was one of the curators. She claimed to know of a fifth version of very high quality, which she recognized as authentic, kept in France in a private collection. It is possible to trace the provenance of the painting since the seizure of the Cavalier d’Arpin’s collection in 1607, after which it was integrated into the Borghese collection where it remained at least until 1831. Sold at auction in Paris by the widow of a bookseller as the work of an anonymous Italian, it was then acquired by the family of the current owners.
The art historian now gives him one of the most illustrious names there is. “I found myself face to face with this magnificent Young man with carafe of roses on a dreary winter day, in the back room of a Parisian galleryshe remembers. Although it was covered in dirt, I immediately recognized the Caravaggio painting that has been a dream for almost a century. » Giovanni Baglione, Caravaggio’s rival, had also described the work in the 17th century, praising the transparency of the water and the dew on the flowers. The painting would have been painted around 1596-1597 for Cardinal Del Monte, patron of the young Merisi, in the wake of the Boy bitten by a lizard with which he would form an allegorical duo on the five senses (smell responding to touch). Maria Cristina Terzaghi has announced the upcoming release of an in-depth work and a detailed essay on this painting. It will then be up to the owners to decide its future: leave it in its vault, lend it to a museum or major exhibitions, or simply put it up for sale.
