description The Lute Player Overview
Caravaggio's The Lute Player (c. 1596) is an early masterpiece depicting a young musician with sheet music and instruments, commissioned by Cardinal Francesco Maria Del Monte and now in the Hermitage Museum, St. Petersburg.
insights Ranking position
The Lute Player ranks #93 of 160 in the Painting ranking, behind Yellow-Red-Blue, ahead of Swans Reflecting Elephants.
help The Lute Player FAQ
Why are there multiple paintings called The Lute Player by Caravaggio?
More than one closely related version of The Lute Player is associated with Caravaggio, which has produced long-running attribution and dating debates. The Hermitage version is connected with Cardinal Francesco Maria Del Monte, one of the artist's most important early patrons.
What music appears in Caravaggio's The Lute Player?
The painting includes legible musical notation beside the young performer and his lute. Scholars have linked the score to contemporary secular part-songs, reinforcing the picture's connection to Del Monte's highly musical household.
What do the flowers and fruit mean in The Lute Player?
The fruit, flowers, instruments, and sheet music display Caravaggio's precise observation of textures and reflected light. They can also suggest beauty's fragility and the passing nature of music, youth, and physical things.
Where can visitors see Caravaggio's Hermitage Lute Player?
The version commissioned for Cardinal Del Monte is in the State Hermitage Museum in St. Petersburg. It dates from Caravaggio's early Roman period, around the mid-1590s.
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