The Seven Works of Mercy
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
Seven works of mercy in one canvas, and one incident has to do double duty: the woman feeding her imprisoned father at her own breast is both feeding the hungry and visiting the prisoner. Samson drinks from the jawbone. St James arrives at a door. St Martin cuts his cloak. Of the dead man being carried out, you see only his feet.
The Virgin leans over a Naples street rather than a heaven.
Caravaggio painted it under a death sentence for murder, for four hundred ducats.
Sources: the institution's own reading of each incident — Cimon nursed by Pero doing two works at once, Samson's jawbone, St James known by his shell, St Martin's cloak, the corpse carried out — and the agreed price of 400 ducats · the Pio Monte was founded in 1602 by seven young Neapolitan noblemen, and the painting is its ‘manifesto’ · burying the dead is not among the works named in Matthew 25 and had to be defended from Tobit and from Augustine · Gallerie d'Italia — Napoli (Intesa Sanpaolo), collection entry for Caravaggio, 'Martyrdom of Saint Ursula', 1610; museum's online masterpieces catalogue, accessed 16 August 2026
For I was hungry, and you gave me to eat: I was thirsty, and you gave me to drink: I was a stranger, and you took me in:
Matthew 25:35 · Douay-Rheims (Challoner), from the project’s own corpus at data/bible_drc.js
Printed on demand. Public-domain masterwork, reproduced from a 15,707 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.