Cardsharps is a famous 16th century oil painting by Caravaggio (1573 - 1610), circa 1594. This painting was lost for almost a century and is now on display at the Kimbell Art Museum in Fort Worth, Texas. From the original owner, Cardinal Francesco Maria del Monte, it entered Barberini collection in Rome, and was passed through the Colonna-Sciarra family. It eventually disappeared in the 1890's and was finally rediscovered in 1987, within a private European collection.
External links
Kimbell's page on the painting (http://www.kimbellart.org/database/index.cfm?detail=yes&ID=AP%201987.06)
Rich with detail, Caravaggio’s The Cardsharps (1596) portrays two cheaters and their unwitting victim playing cards.
Although the work narrates a victory of the dishonest over the naive, Caravaggio is more concerned with telling a story than teaching a moral lesson.
The thoughtful concentration of the youth, the probing eyes of the cardsharp, and the twisted arm of his partner typify the richness of Caravaggio’s scenes from everyday life, many of which became popular during the painter’s lifetime.
The Fortune Teller is one of two known genre pieces done by Caravaggio in the year 1594, the other being Cardsharps.
The Fortune Teller is believed to be the earlier of the two, and dates from the period during which the artist had recently left the workshop of the Giuseppe Cesari to make his own way selling paintings through the dealer Costantino.
Giustiniani's friend, Cardinal Francesco Maria Del Monte, purchased the companion piece, Cardsharps, in 1595, and at some point in that year Caravaggio entered the Cardinal's household.
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