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The Calling of St Matthew
1599–1600 · Saint-Louis-des-Français / San Luigi dei Francesi, Roma
For Saint Matthew · 21 September
Sizes
image 18×18.5 in on a 18×24 in sheet
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Dots per inch: how many pixels of the museum’s file go into each inch of paper. Our floor is 240 for sheets up to 20 inches, 180 up to 36 inches and 120 beyond, because a larger print is seen from further away. We never offer a sheet below the floor, and the number on each size is the one you receive.
Hahnemühle Photo Rag, 308 gsm cotton rag · pigment inks · printed to order
Printed to order · the whole painting, never cropped · if it arrives damaged, we replace it
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All editionsAbout this painting
Christ's hand comes out of the dark and points across a table of coins. Irving Lavin reads it as Adam's hand from the Sistine ceiling, reversed: Christ as the New Adam. Smarthistory traces the light to a source above His head that Caravaggio will not show, and Gozzano and Tosini tie it to the chapel's own window; the window he does paint lets nothing in. At the table young men in feathers and silk turn to look. Which of them is Matthew, art historians have argued since Andreas Prater in 1985, and still argue. Someone at that table is about to stand up.
Sources: Irving Lavin, "Caravaggio’s Calling of St. Matthew: The Identity of the Protagonist," in Past-Present (UC Press, 1993), 84-99 · Andreas Prater, Pantheon (1985); Jürgen Müller, Kunstgeschichte OPRJ (2021), DOI 10.5283/kuge.577 · the beam from an unseen source above Christ’s head; contemporary dress against timeless robes · citing Gozzano & Tosini, La cappella Contarelli in San Luigi dei Francesi
And when Jesus passed on from thence, he saw a man sitting in the custom house, named Matthew; and he saith to him: Follow me. And he arose up and followed him.
Matthew 9:9 · Douay-Rheims (Challoner)