This is one of the last works of Caravaggio, who here is portrayed in the severed head of Goliath. This macabre detail makes us well understand the state of mind of the artist, already by nature prone to drama, but that here reaches peaks of total pessimism. It is almost as if he foresaw his imminent end and felt the need to become aware of the physical and inner condition of death. He feels, perhaps, a finished man, and he is probably asking for that mercy that can be read in David’s gaze, while he looks at Goliath’s head.
The painting was probably painted in Naples, where Caravaggio, having fled from Rome in 1606, was in exile on a charge of murder. It is not known who commissioned the work and it is perhaps the painter himself who chose the subject: the victory of the hero of Israel over the Philistine giant Goliath.
