A reader, Cees de Bondt, contacted me about his research on this picture- The Death of Hyacinth. He thinks there’s a Caravaggio connection because of the inclusion of tennis rackets in the picture. For the uninitiated, Caravaggio is supposed to have gone on the run after killing a Roman in a tennis match. As Kenneth Clark famously said- “That’s taking competitive sports too far.” Cees is the author of Royal Tennis in Renaissance Italy.
More information over on Cees’s blog.
In all the years I have admired Caravaggio paintings I have never noticed sporting equipment, or if I did, the meaning escaped me. So thank you.
I suppose it all depends on the date of this painting and the date of the killing.
Posted by: Hels | 10/12/2014 at 11:29 PM