Boy with a Basket of Fruit

A bare-shouldered youth clasps a heaped basket of grapes, figs, apples, and peaches, his lips parted, his gaze soft and direct. Caravaggio painted this early in his Roman years, and the fruit is as carefully observed as the boy - each leaf and blemish exact, some already spotting toward rot. The sensuous ambiguity of the model (perhaps his companion Mario Minniti) and the frank physical presence of the produce announce the young painter's program: paint from the live thing, on the table in front of you, with no idealizing veil.