The Musicians

The Musicians (c. 1595) is a painting by the Italian Baroque master Michelangelo Merisi da Caravaggio (1571-1610). It is held in the Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York. Caravaggio entered the household of Cardinal Francesco Maria Del Monte sometime in 1595. His biographer, the painter Baglione, says he "painted for the Cardinal youths playing music very well drawn from nature and also a youth playing a lute," the latter presumably being The Lut... more

The Musicians (c. 1595) is a painting by the Italian Baroque master Michelangelo Merisi da Caravaggio (1571-1610). It is held in the Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York. Caravaggio entered the household of Cardinal Francesco Maria Del Monte sometime in 1595. His biographer, the painter Baglione, says he "painted for the Cardinal youths playing music very well drawn from nature and also a youth playing a lute," the latter presumably being The Lute Player, which seems to form a companion-piece to The Musicians. The picture shows four boys in quasi-Classical costume, three playing various musical instruments or singing, the fourth dressed as Cupid and reaching towards a bunch of grapes.The central figure with the lute has been identified as Caravaggio's companion Mario Minniti, and the individual next to him and facing the viewer has been recognised as a self-portrait of the artist. The cupid bears a strong resemblance to the boy in Boy Peeling Fruit, done a few years before, and also... less