David with the Head of Goliath
The original, as its museum records it
Every line above is reproduced from the holding institution’s own catalogue entry, which is linked. Where their title, date or attribution differs from ours, theirs is the one printed here.
The file this print is made from
Sizes
About this painting
The Borghese reads the giant's severed head as Caravaggio's own face — the painter as Goliath, defeated and disgraced, held up by a David who will not celebrate — the boy looks sorrowful, as though the killing cost him something. On the sword blade runs an inscription, H-AS OS, read as humilitas occidit superbiam: humility kills pride.
He sent the canvas to Cardinal Scipione Borghese from exile in Naples, where he had fled after killing a man. Tradition holds it as a bid for the cardinal's favor — mercy sought by a painter who had made himself the corpse.
Sources: Galleria Borghese official page · Antonio Iommelli, 'David con la testa di Golia', scheda di catalogo, Galleria Borghese online collection catalogue, inv. 455, January 2023
He ran, and stood over the Philistine, and took his sword, and drew it out of the sheath, and slew him, and cut off his head. And the Philistines seeing that their champion was dead, fled away.
I Samuel 17:51 · Douay-Rheims (Challoner), from the project’s own corpus at data/bible_drc.js
Printed on demand. Public-domain masterwork, reproduced from a 7,329 px master of the original. The whole image is printed — never cropped to fit the sheet — so every sheet carries an archival margin, and the dimensions and resolution listed above are the ones you receive.