The wine god wears a vine wreath and a bare shoulder, but his lips are grey and his skin sallow. According to Caravaggio's first biographer, the young painter made it with a mirror, so this is himself, early in his Roman years, when he reportedly spent months in hospital. It also advertised his skill at still life, portraiture and the antique.
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The grapes and peaches on the stone ledge are studied as closely as the face. Cardinal Scipione Borghese seized the picture from the painter Cavalier d'Arpino in 1607.
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Compared by a vision model
