Anonymous painting attributed to Caravaggio

I eat this stuff up. I really do. People rediscovering Caravaggios, Vermeers, Rembrandts… a man can dream can’t he? It’s just plain cool.

This one is especially crazy since it was auctioned in just about the most public manner possible and only went for 50,400 GBP (somewhere in the neighborhood of $100,000.) Lots and lots of people had a shot at this one. If the attribution really sticks that’s an incredible bargain.

ROME – A casual glance at an auction catalog set a British art historian on the path to discovering the brushstrokes of Caravaggio on a painting previously attributed to an anonymous follower of the Baroque master.

Experts in Italy believe a copy of Caravaggio’s “The Cardsharps” which surfaced at a London auction last year is an earlier version of the 1594 painting now displayed at the Kimbell Art Museum in Fort Worth, Texas.

Here’s the newly attributed painting

caravaggio_the_cardsharps.jpg

and the version at the Kimbell

carvaggio_cardsharps_later.jpg

Anonymous painting attributed to Caravaggio

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