David avec la tête de Goliath

A young David strides forward with the giant's head hanging from his hand, more triumphant than troubled. Caravaggio painted this version on wood around 1606 to 1607, and it now hangs in Vienna.

The story behind the painting

Caravaggio often explored one subject in several variations. He painted David and Goliath around 1600, now in the Prado, and two pictures titled David with the Head of Goliath: this one in the Kunsthistorisches Museum, from about 1606 to 1607, and another in the Galleria Borghese, dated either 1607 or 1609 to 1610. Wikidata gives 1607 for the Vienna panel. The moment seems to be the one in 1 Samuel 17:57, when Abner brings David to Saul with the Philistine's head still in his hand.

What to look for

The pose is the usual one for this episode: David striding in triumph, the head held in his hand. The picture is painted in oil on wood and measures about 91 by 116 cm. Compared with the Borghese version it is less dark in mood, and Goliath's head is more generic, while in Rome the head is widely accepted as a self-portrait of the painter and is pushed frontally toward the viewer.

Meaning and intent

The difference in feeling is the heart of the comparison: here David is more triumphant, there he is introspective and oddly compassionate. The model for David in both seems to be an older version of the boy who posed for Amor Vincit Omnia and for the Capitoline and Pamphilj John the Baptist around 1602. Some, most notably Peter Robb, identify him as Cecco, Caravaggio's apprentice and lover in Rome, though there is no record of Cecco with the painter after his flight from Rome in 1606.

Legacy

Peter Robb believes the painting was acquired in Naples between 1611 and 1617 by the Count of Villamediana, since Giovanni Bellori records that the count returned to Spain with a half-figure of David by Caravaggio. In 2020 a cropped version, with chains added to David's neck, appeared on the cover of Westside Gunn's album Pray for Paris, designed by Virgil Abloh. The striding, confident David of Vienna thus found a new audience four centuries later.