David with the Head of Goliath (1601/02) by Michelangelo Merisi da Caravaggio, 1 Samuel 17:45-53, Bible.Gallery
Artwork Description
David with the Head of Goliath is a painting by the Italian Baroque artist Caravaggio. It is housed in the Galleria Borghese, Rome. The painting, which was in the collection of Cardinal Scipione Borghese in 1650, has been dated as early as 1605 and as late as 1609–1610, with more recent scholars tending towards the former.
Caravaggio also treated this subject in a work dated c. 1607 in the Kunsthistorisches Museum in Vienna, and in an early work dated c. 1600 in the Prado in Madrid.
The immediate inspiration for Caravaggio was a work by a follower of Giorgione, c.1510, but Caravaggio captures the drama more effectively by having the head dangling from David's hand and dripping blood, rather than resting on a ledge. The sword in David's hand carries an abbreviated inscription H-AS OS; this has been interpreted as an abbreviation of the Latin phrase humilitas occidit superbiam ("humility kills pride").