Le Sacrifice d'Isaac

Caravaggio painted this between 1603 and 1604 for Maffeo Barberini, a rising Vatican monsignor who two decades later would be elected Pope Urban the Eighth. He caught the split second in the Bible story when Abraham, knife already at his son's throat, is stopped by an angel who seizes his wrist and points to a ram in the bushes to be killed instead. Isaac's mouth is open in a real cry, his cheek pressed to the stone. X-rays of the canvas have turned up something telling: Caravaggio first used the same young studio model, known as Cecco, for both the boy and the angel, then reworked the angel's face and hair so the two would not look alike. The ram and a slice of soft evening landscape close off the right side.