Caravaggio | The Calling of Saint Matthew
Caravaggio | The Calling of Saint Matthew
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- 100% hand-painted oil on canvas
- Delivered Framed & Ready to Hang!
- We stretch (Gallery Wrap) every canvas
- Hanging wire is attached to the back
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About The Calling of Saint Matthew by Caravaggio
Caravaggio painted this between 1599 and 1600, his first major public commission, for the Contarelli Chapel in the church of San Luigi dei Francesi in Rome. It is still there. You find it in a side chapel, and for a small coin a light comes on for a few minutes.
The scene is a tax office. Five men in contemporary Roman dress sit around a table counting money, and two figures enter from the right — Christ, almost entirely hidden behind Saint Peter, with one arm extended. A shaft of light cuts diagonally across the back wall above his hand. There is no halo, no sky, no architecture of consequence. Just a dim room, a table of coins, and a gesture.
Art historians still argue about which man is Matthew. The bearded figure in the centre appears to point at himself, but he may be pointing at the young man at the end of the table, who has not looked up from the money. Caravaggio also borrowed Christ's languid hand directly from Michelangelo's Adam on the Sistine ceiling — the gesture that gave life, reused as the gesture that calls.
The Calling of Saint Matthew at a glance
- Artist: Michelangelo Merisi da Caravaggio (1571–1610)
- Painted: 1599–1600, Rome
- Movement: Italian Baroque — tenebrism
- Original: Contarelli Chapel, San Luigi dei Francesi, Rome
- Medium: Oil on canvas, 322 × 340 cm
Common questions about The Calling of Saint Matthew
Where is The Calling of Saint Matthew?
Still in the church it was painted for — the Contarelli Chapel in San Luigi dei Francesi, near the Piazza Navona in Rome. It has never been moved to a museum, and it hangs alongside two other Caravaggios from the same commission.
Which figure is Matthew?
Genuinely disputed. The traditional reading is the bearded man in the centre who appears to point at his own chest. An alternative reading, argued seriously since the 1980s, is that he is pointing sideways at the young man at the end of the table still absorbed in counting — which would make the painting about a man who has not yet noticed he has been called.
What is tenebrism?
An extreme form of light-and-dark contrast in which most of the canvas is left in deep shadow and a narrow, hard-edged light picks out only what matters. Caravaggio did not invent it but he pushed it further than anyone before him, and it became the defining device of Baroque painting across Europe.
When was it painted?
Between 1599 and 1600, when Caravaggio was in his late twenties. It made his reputation almost overnight.
How much is it worth?
It belongs to a functioning Roman church and has no valuation. Caravaggio's works effectively never come to market; when a lost painting attributed to him surfaced in Madrid in 2021, it was withdrawn from auction and export-blocked by the Spanish government within days.
Own a hand-painted Calling of Saint Matthew
This is not a print. Every painting we sell is reproduced in oils on canvas, by hand, by professional artists — no giclée, no computer-generated technique.
Roughly two-thirds of this canvas is near-black, and the entire drama depends on how tightly Caravaggio rationed the light. That is a problem for printing. Printers deliberately lift shadow detail, because dense unbroken blacks turn muddy and blotchy on paper — so a print brightens precisely the darkness that Caravaggio spent the painting withholding, and the shaft of light stops being an event. Built by hand in oils, the shadows can stay as deep as he made them, and the light does the work again.
- A range of sizes — choose yours above. The original is nearly square and very large; wider formats suit it well.
- Framed and ready to hang, gallery wrap, or rolled canvas if you would rather frame it yourself.
- 30-day money-back guarantee, no questions.
- Free delivery Australia-wide. Australian owned and operated, with a local contact you can actually reach.
Framing Options: You have 3 choices
Option 1. Choose an outer frame - see images below.
You only need to choose one and the painting will be sent to you framed and ready to hang.
* Below is an example of a customer who chose the Gold Ornate frame
Option 2: Choose a Gallery Wrap Stretched Painting.
If you want the frameless modern gallery wrap look then you only need to choose Stretched Gallery Wrap from the finish option dropdown.
You receive your stretched gallery wrap painting ready to hang - with a hanging wire attached behind.
The back of the Stretched Gallery Wrap looks like the image below - it has a hanging wire!
Option 3: Choose Canvas Only if you want to frame the painting yourself.
Your painting will be sent to you in an art tube - you can then frame it yourself or take it to your local framer.
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The quality of the work is ten out of ten. The piece was affordable and the turnaround time was quite quick. What you see is what you get. I’ll definitely be getting my next painting from Direct Art Australia.
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Great painting. Brightens up my living room.
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Product is as good or better than expected. Beautiful quality, very well packaged and delivered as promised. Very happy indeed with this artwork.
