In the manner of Caravaggio
Italian, 1571–1610
Doubting, 2026
Oil on canvas
180 × 144 cm
Never painted.
Commissioned for the collection, 2026.
PAB 2026.2.2
Her phone is the lamp, and the lamp is pointed at her face, where something she has just read has opened her mouth. The sheet is red, the pillows are dissolving, and one bare foot is pushed at us so close you could count the creases. Caravaggio put dirty feet at the front of his altarpieces and was told off for it. Thomas needed a finger in the wound. She needs a second source.
The brief
A young woman in bed lit only by the phone she holds above her face, expression of disbelief, sheets and pillows dissolving into darkness. Italian Baroque oil painting, extreme chiaroscuro with a single hard light source cutting figures out of near-total darkness, life-size figures pressed close to the picture plane, dirty feet and real faces, deep blacks, warm flesh tones, blood red and dull gold, dramatic diagonal composition, thick glossy oil surface. Museum photograph of the oil painting, dramatic but even gallery lighting, no frame, no text, no wall, no floor, cropped to the canvas edge.
Written to the house rules. The painter's name does not appear.
Take it home
The painting on this room's wall, at its own proportions, nothing written on it.
