The Calling of Saint Matthew

Caravaggio painted a late version of The Calling of Saint Matthew, one of the most influential subjects he treated in his Roman period, around 1609–10 in his later Neapolitan or Sicilian period. The original Contarelli version had established the composition as canonical — Christ's entering gesture pointing to the tax collector who will become an apostle — and this later treatment shows how the subject remained in his repertoire as a vehicle for continued exploration of the drama of conversion. The late style, with its darker grounds and more atmospheric light, gives the scene a more mysterious quality than the earlier Rome version, the divine call less immediately visible but no less transformative in its effect on the startled figures around the table.

The revolutionary composition places the sacred event in a contemporary Roman interior, with the dramatic shaft of light cutting diagonally across the scene to illuminate the startled tax collectors in their modern dress.