Caravaggio's Boy with a Basket of Fruit - In-Person Lecture

The Morgan Library exhibition (January 16 through April 19, 2026) features an extraordinary loan from the Galleria Borghese in Rome: Boy with a Basket of Fruit, an important early work by Caravaggio (1571–1610).  Trained in his native Lombardy, Caravaggio brought to Rome a tradition of naturalism that can be traced through Venetian Renaissance painting and back to Leonardo da Vinci’s work in Milan. Caravaggio contributed a uniquely realistic approach to painting that turned away from mannerist painting’s artificiality. Far from the idealized figures typically depicted in Roman mannerist painting at the time, Caravaggio transformed painting by presenting a noted stark directness, along with details in the overripe fruit his painted boy holds. Professor Thomas Germano will present a visual lecture about Caravaggio and his Boy with a Basket of Fruit.