Knabe beim Schälen einer Frucht

This is thought to be the earliest surviving painting by Caravaggio, made around 1592 or 1593, just after he arrived in Rome as an unknown young man from Milan with almost nothing to his name. A boy sits absorbed in an ordinary task, peeling a piece of fruit, and there is none of the violence or dark drama the painter would later become notorious for. It seems to have sold well. Several versions survive, and the story goes that in these lean early years Caravaggio's small pictures were put in a dealer's shop window, and when one caught a buyer's eye he would simply paint the same thing again to meet the demand. This particular version has hung at Hampton Court, in the British Royal Collection, and scholars still argue over which of the surviving copies came first from his hand.