The Death of the Virgin

Caravaggio painted The Death of the Virgin in 1606, and it caused a scandal. He modeled the Virgin Mary on a dead woman pulled from the Tiber, and he painted her bare feet and swollen body with the same directness he gave to everything else. The Virgin lies on a low bed at the center of the canvas, her body stretched out, her head tilted back. A red dress covers her to the waist, her feet bare. Around her, the apostles gather in grief, their faces hidden in shadow or turned away. Mary Magdalene sits at the foot of the bed, her head in her hands, her back to the viewer. The room is bare: a wooden ceiling, a rough wall, nothing else. The light comes from the upper left, falling across the figures in a hard diagonal. The canvas is large, roughly 98 by 70 inches, portrait format. Caravaggio was 35 in 1606. He had been working in Rome since 1592, and he had changed painting in the city with his dark backgrounds and harsh light. He painted the Death of the Virgin for the church of Santa Maria della Scala in Rome. The Carmelite fathers who commissioned it rejected it. The model, the bare feet, and the absence of any iconographic signs of holiness were too much. Caravaggio sold it to the Duke of Mantua instead. Roman painting around 1606 was split between Caravaggio's followers and the Carracci school, which favored a softer, more classical approach. Caravaggio's influence was growing but his reputation was also deteriorating. He killed a man in a brawl in May 1606 and fled Rome. The Death of the Virgin was one of his last Roman commissions. Oil on canvas, 369 by 245 centimeters. Caravaggio painted from models, in his studio, under controlled light. The figures are built in thick, direct strokes, with the shadows painted in dark glazes. The red of the Virgin's dress is the strongest color in the painting, and it anchors the composition. This is a large, dark, serious painting. It works in a room with space and low light: a dining room, a study, or a hallway with deep walls. The 18x24 framed version in a black frame is the most appropriate choice. The dark palette needs a wall that is not white; a grey or deep blue wall works better. The painting is in the Musee du Louvre, Paris, where it has been since 1793. This is a public domain artwork, sourced from Wikimedia Commons. We print it on archival matte paper at sizes from 8x10 to 24x36 inches, framed or unframed. The image is printed at full resolution with no cropping.