The Cardsharps (after Caravaggio)
after Michelangelo Merisi da Caravaggio (Caravaggio 1571 - Port'Ercole 1610)
Category
Art / Oil paintings
Date
1700 - 1799
Materials
Oil on canvas
Measurements
546 x 724 mm (21 1/2 x 28 1/2 in)
Place of origin
Italy
Order this imageCollection
The Argory, County Armagh
NT 564839
Caption
Around a table, covered with an Anatolian carpet on which a backgammon board juts out into space on the left, two cardsharps fleece a boy. They flamboyantly wear rich damask doublets and feathered hats. The older theatrically-villainous man standing behind the boy, looking at his hand of cards that he holds, signals, with a cheat's glove-torn hand, to his accomplice. He has his back to the viewer on the right and is pulling a hidden card - the six of clubs and revealing the five of hearts - out from his waistband. The original painting of around 1595, now at the Kimbell Art Museum, Fort Worth, launched Caravaggio’s career. This is one of over 30 known copies.
Summary
Oil painting on canvas, The Cardsharps (after Caravaggio), after Michelangelo Merisi da Caravaggio (Caravaggio 1571 – Port'Ercole 1610). The original painting, once owned by Cadrdinal Francesco Maria del Monte and in the Barberini Collection, Rome, is now in the Kimbell Art Museum, Fort Worth.
Provenance
Given by Walter Albert Nevill MacGeough Bond (1907 - 1986) in 1979
Credit line
The Argory, The MacGeough Bond Collection (National Trust)
Makers and roles
after Michelangelo Merisi da Caravaggio (Caravaggio 1571 - Port'Ercole 1610), artist