The Taking of Christ

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The Taking of Christ

Caravaggio, 1573–1610

oil on canvas

133.5 × 169.5 cm

National Gallery of Ireland, Dublin

The Taking of Christ was painted in 1602 by Michelangelo Merisi da Caravaggio (1573–1610).

1 Description
2 Lost and rediscovered
3 See also
4 Primary sources

[edit] Description

There are seven figures from left to right: St John, Jesus, Judas, two soldiers, a man and a soldier. They are standing and only about three-quarters of each of their bodies are visible. They are in front of a very dark black background. The setting is disguised in the blackness. The main source of light is not evident in the painting but shines in from the top left-hand side. There is a lantern being held by the man on the right of the painting. On the left side of the painting there is a man fleeing; his arms are raised and his mouth a gasp. His cloak is flying in the air and being pulled by a soldier.

It is a long held belief that the man holding the lantern is a self-portrait of Michelangelo Merisi da Caravaggio.

[edit] Lost and rediscovered

By the late 18th century, the painting seemed to have disappeared, and its whereabouts remained unknown for about 200 years. In 1990 Caravaggio’s lost masterpiece was recognized in the residence of the Society of Jesus (the Jesuits) in Dublin, Ireland. The exciting rediscovery was published in 1993.

The painting had been hanging in the Jesuits’ dining room since the early 1930s, but had long been considered a copy of the lost original by Gerrit van Honthorst, also known as Gerard of the Nights, one of Caravaggio’s Dutch followers. This erroneous attribution had been made while the painting was still in the possession of the Mattei family in Rome, whose ancestors had originally commissioned it. The family sold it, as a work by Honthorst, in 1802 to William Hamilton Nisbet, in whose home in Scotland it hung until 1921. Later that decade the painting was sold to an Irish paediatrician who eventually donated it to the Jesuit Fathers in Dublin in gratitude for their support following the death of her husband. The Taking of Christ remained in their possession for about 60 years, until it was spotted, in the early 1990s, by Sergio Benedetti, Senior Conservator of the National Gallery of Ireland, while visiting the Jesuit Fathers to examine a number of other paintings for the purposes of restoration. As layers of dirt and discoloured varnish were removed, the supreme technical quality of the painting was revealed, and it was identified as Caravaggio’s lost painting.

It is now on long-term loan to the National Gallery of Ireland having previously been on display in the van Gogh Museum, Amsterdam.

Much of the credit for the verification of authenticity of this painting belongs to Francesca Cappelletti and Laura Testa. Two graduate students during a long and arduous investigatory process. They discovered the first recorded mention of The Taking of Christ in the cellar of a palazzo in the small town of Recanati. This had become the Mattei family archives and it was here they discovered in an ancient and decaying account book the original commission and payments to Caravaggio for this painting. What followed was years of Francesca Cappelletti following clues in an attempt to find this lost painting.