David with the Head of Goliath

On the rock under David's arm Dolci painted A.S. 1680, Anno Salutis, the year of salvation, followed by his own initials and the word Florence. The date marks only the end. On the back of the stretcher Dolci wrote down the payments he received, and they show the work began in 1670. The last payment came in 1681.

The patron was the Marchese Pierfrancesco Rinuccini, of an old Florentine family, and he ordered two pictures. This one shows the shepherd boy after the battle, with the giant's head beside him. The other, its pendant, showed Salome with the head of John the Baptist. So the pair set a hero holding the head of an enemy of God beside a young woman holding the head of a saint.

The museum's record points to how calm this David is, elegant and unruffled, his white sash only faintly stained with blood. The two paintings stayed with the Rinuccini until 1852 or 1853 and then went to the Russian collector Anatole Demidoff, Prince of San Donato, near Florence. The Salome has since been lost. The David reappeared at auction in Paris in 1975, and the museum bought it in 1985.