Scholar Attributes a Long-Lost Caravaggio in Paris

By Marcus Bennett

Maria Cristina Terzaghi dates Young Man with a Carafe of Roses to around 1596 or 1597 and says it is the original canvas missing for nearly two centuries.

Terzaghi, a professor at Roma Tre University and one of the world’s leading Caravaggio scholars, made the identification after entering the back room of a Parisian gallery on a gray winter day three years ago. The canvas carried a layer of grime. She recognized the composition immediately, according to her detailed account published Sunday in La Repubblica.

She believes it is an original by the Italian Baroque master, rather than one of the copies that have intrigued art historians for decades.

The canvas Terzaghi found depicts a curly-haired young man in a white shirt. He leans against a table covered with fruit, an artichoke, and a glass carafe filled with roses. His mouth hangs slightly open. One eyebrow is raised, as if he is about to speak. A window and another young man appear in the carafe’s reflection. Terzaghi suggests that the reflected figure may be Caravaggio himself.

What does the attribution change?

Terzaghi’s account identifies four old copies of the composition, including one at the High Museum of Art in Atlanta. The original had apparently vanished, while the composition occupied scholars for nearly a century.

Her proposed date places the work in early Rome, when Caravaggio was in his twenties and beginning to establish his reputation. Terzaghi also links it closely to Boy Bitten by a Lizard, another early painting showing a young man beside an elaborate still life.

Scholars have suggested that the two compositions might form part of a series representing the five senses. Under that reading, the lizard represents touch, while the roses represent smell.

For Caravaggio studies, the claim would add a possible early original and strengthen the proposed pairing with Boy Bitten by a Lizard. That change in status depends on independent specialists accepting Terzaghi’s evidence.

The documented route

Terzaghi’s provenance research places the painting in a 1607 inventory of works belonging to Giuseppe Cesari, known as Cavalier d’Arpino. His workshop employed the young Caravaggio. Cesari later faced trouble with papal authorities after being accused of illegally possessing weapons and orchestrating a street brawl that “disfigured a painter” named Pomarancio.

He surrendered his art collection to escape prosecution. The works eventually passed to Cardinal Scipione Borghese, nephew of Pope Paul V.

The painting was recorded in the Borghese collection in 1693. Terzaghi believes it remained with the family until at least 1831, when restrictions that had previously prevented its sale had passed. The documented route ends after that point.

By the early twentieth century, the work had reached the holdings of a Paris bookseller. Following his death, his widow put it up for auction in 1909. The catalogue described it simply as the work of an anonymous Italian painter.

An ancestor of the current owners bought it at that auction. It has remained in the family ever since.

Why the attribution rests on quality

Terzaghi places the strongest evidentiary weight on the painting’s quality. Her case includes:

• The young man’s expressive face.
• The shimmering white fabric of his shirt.
• The handling of light passing through the water-filled carafe.

She also connects the floral arrangement with a description by Giovanni Baglione, Caravaggio’s contemporary and rival. Baglione recalled the artist’s extraordinary treatment of water, glass, and flowers covered in dew. The arrangement’s resemblance to that description supports Terzaghi’s judgment, although specialist review remains outstanding.

What remains unresolved

The discovery is not entirely new to the art-historical world. In January 2025, Spain’s Ars Magazine reported that a French family believed it owned the missing Caravaggio. Terzaghi also alluded to the painting in the catalogue for the Caravaggio 2025 exhibition in Rome.

Her La Repubblica account offers a fuller explanation of the attribution and the provenance research behind it. The principal unresolved question is how the painting travelled from Italy to France. Other specialists must assess the evidence before the work can gain wider acceptance.

The attribution also came during an unusually busy few days for Caravaggio scholars. On Saturday, another Italian art historian, Gianni Papi, attributed a Portrait of a Young Man to Caravaggio during a conference in Montepulciano. That painting had previously sold at Dorotheum as a work from the 16th-century Tuscan school. Papi has yet to publish the evidence supporting his claim.

Specialist scrutiny of the Paris canvas and a clearer account of its journey from Italy to France will determine whether Terzaghi’s identification gains wider acceptance.