# The Taking of Christ > Michelangelo Merisi da Caravaggio - 1602 > Canonical HTML: https://iconotheca.com/artworks/caravaggio/caravaggio-the-taking-of-christ/ > Published by Servola Systems GmbH. Last verified: 2026-08-31 ## Tombstone - **Artist:** Michelangelo Merisi da Caravaggio - **Date:** 1602 - **Medium:** Oil on canvas - **Dimensions:** 135.5 x 169.5 cm as catalogued by the National Gallery of Ireland. 133.5 x 169.5 cm and 134 x 170 cm are both in wide circulation; the gallery's figure is the one this record follows. - **Object type:** Painting - **Period:** Italian, seventeenth century - **Current location:** National Gallery of Ireland, Dublin. On indefinite loan from the Jesuit Community, Leeson Street, Dublin, who acknowledge the generosity of the late Dr Marie Lea-Wilson. - **Attribution:** accepted ## Summary A Caravaggio of 1602, paid for at 125 scudi by the Roman nobleman Ciriaco Mattei and entered in his bank book on 2 January 1603. It was sold out of the family in 1802 under the name of Gerard van Honthorst, went to Scotland, came to auction at Dowell's in Edinburgh in 1921 at eight guineas and again in 1922 at five, and was given in about 1930 to the Jesuit house at 35 Leeson Street in Dublin by a doctor whose husband had been shot dead by the IRA. It hung in the dining room for sixty years under a coat of dirt and brown varnish.In August 1990 Sergio Benedetti, senior conservator at the National Gallery of Ireland, walked round to Leeson Street to look at the community's pictures and recognised it. Three years of examination and consultation followed. The painting was unveiled on 16 November 1993 and Benedetti published the case in The Burlington Magazine the same month, alongside a companion article with Francesca Cappelletti setting out the documentary evidence she and Laura Testa had found in the Mattei archive at Recanati.At least twelve early versions of this composition exist. One of them, in Odessa, was long argued to be the original, was itself stolen in July 2008, was recovered from a car in Berlin in 2010 with the canvas shredded, and was restored between 2018 and 2021. Every plate in this record states which version it shows. ## Provenance Every link carries a grade. `documented` means a cited source supports it, `disputed` means the identification is argued but not established, `unknown` means we have no owner for that span and have not bridged it. - **1602-1802** Ciriaco Mattei, Rome, and the Mattei family by descent `[documented]` (commission) Commissioned by Marchese Ciriaco Mattei and paid for at 125 scudi, the payment entered in his libro di rincontro del banco on 2 January 1603 for a painting with its frame of Christ taken in the garden. Found in the Mattei archive at Recanati by Francesca Cappelletti and Laura Testa and published in 1993. The picture stayed in the Palazzo Mattei di Giove by descent for two centuries. In 1786 Giuseppe Vasi catalogued it as a work of Gerard van Honthorst, and a family inventory of 1793 repeated the error. - **1802-1920** William Hamilton Nisbet and descendants, Biel House, East Lothian `[documented]` (purchase) Sold by Duca Giuseppe Mattei to the Scottish collector William Hamilton Nisbet in Rome on 27 January 1802, as a Honthorst, with other pictures. It hung at Biel House near Edinburgh and descended to Mrs Mary Georgiana Constance Nisbet Hamilton Ogilvy, who died in 1920. No price for the 1802 sale is recorded in the sources consulted. - **1921-1922** John Kent Richardson `[documented]` (purchase at auction) Dowell's, Edinburgh, 25 June 1921, lot 30, at eight guineas. A hammer price for a large seventeenth-century canvas catalogued under the name of a Dutch follower. - **1922-c. 1924** The Hon. Major Charles Noel `[documented]` (purchase at auction) Dowell's, Edinburgh, 3 May 1922, lot 480, at five guineas. Lower than the previous year's hammer, which is what a resale looks like when the first buyer was wrong about the picture. - **c. 1924-c. 1930** Dr Marie Lea-Wilson, Dublin `[documented]` (purchase) Bought in Edinburgh in the early 1920s as a Honthorst and brought to Ireland. The gallery records the acquisition at 1924; the first Irish document is a receipt for GBP 20 to the Dublin cabinetmaker James Hicks for restoring the frame. Her husband, RIC District Inspector Percival Lea-Wilson, had been shot dead by the IRA at Gorey on 15 June 1920 in retribution for his treatment of republican prisoners at the Rotunda after the 1916 Rising. Whether she bought it directly from Major Charles Noel is not established. - **c. 1930-present** The Jesuit Community, 35 Leeson Street, Dublin `[documented]` (gift) Given by Marie Lea-Wilson to the Jesuit house of study in gratitude to Father Thomas Finlay, who had counselled her after her husband's killing. It hung in the dining room for about sixty years, still as a Honthorst. The Jesuits remain the owners; the loan to the National Gallery of Ireland transferred custody, not title. - **1990-1993** The Jesuit Community; in the care of the National Gallery of Ireland `[documented]` (identification and conservation) Recognised by Sergio Benedetti, senior conservator, on a visit to Leeson Street in August 1990. Three years of research, technical analysis, consultation with international specialists and cleaning followed. Published in The Burlington Magazine, November 1993, vol. 135 no. 1088, with a companion documentary article by Francesca Cappelletti and Benedetti. Unveiled to the public on 16 November 1993 in the exhibition Caravaggio: The Master Revealed. - **1993-present** National Gallery of Ireland, Dublin (custody); Jesuit Community, Leeson Street (title) `[documented]` (indefinite loan) Loan number L.14702. The credit line reads: on indefinite loan to the National Gallery of Ireland from the Jesuit Community, Leeson St., Dublin, who acknowledge the kind generosity of the late Dr Marie Lea-Wilson, 1992. The gallery dates the acknowledgement to 1992 and the loan to 1993. Fourteen exhibitions are recorded between 1994 and 2024, including venues in London, Boston, Washington, Milan, Amsterdam, Rome and Dublin. ## Auction results Hammer and buyer's premium are stated separately. Where a source conflates them this record says so. - **** , - This picture has been sold at public auction twice, both times at Dowell's in Edinburgh and both times as a Gerard van Honthorst. It has not been on the market since 1922 and is not for sale: it belongs to a religious community and is on indefinite public loan. No modern valuation, insurance figure or estimate for it has been published, and this record does not supply one. The only other price ever recorded for it is the 125 scudi Ciriaco Mattei paid Caravaggio in 1603, which included the frame. - **1921-06-25** Dowell's, Edinburgh, Nisbet Hamilton Ogilvy property, Biel House, lot 30 - Estimate: Not published in the sources consulted - Hammer: GBP 8 8s (eight guineas) - With premium: Not applicable; buyer's premium was not charged in British salerooms in 1921 - Bought by John Kent Richardson. Catalogued as a Honthorst. Eight guineas is GBP 8.40 in decimal currency. - **1922-05-03** Dowell's, Edinburgh, Unnamed in the source, lot 480 - Estimate: Not published in the sources consulted - Hammer: GBP 5 5s (five guineas) - With premium: Not applicable; buyer's premium was not charged in British salerooms in 1922 - Bought by the Hon. Major Charles Noel, eleven months after the previous sale and three guineas lower. Still catalogued as a Honthorst. ## Exhibitions - Caravaggio: The Master Revealed, National Gallery of Ireland, Dublin, from 16 November 1993, 1993 - National Treasures: Caravaggio in Belfast, Ulster Museum, Belfast, 10 May to 1 September 2024, on loan alongside The Supper at Emmaus (National Gallery, London) - the two Mattei pictures shown together for the first time since the early seventeenth century, when they were commissioned as a pair, 2024 ## Open questions - Which of the surviving versions is the 1626 copy that Asdrubale Mattei commissioned from Giovanni di Attili for 12 scudi? The commission is documented; the object has not been matched to it. - How many early versions are there exactly? At least twelve are cited, but no published census lists them all with locations and current attributions. - Is the height 133.5, 134 or 135.5 cm? The National Gallery of Ireland, the Commons artwork record and the gallery's own colour-corrected image file give three different figures. - Where was the picture between 1802 and 1921? It is recorded as hanging at Biel House in East Lothian, but no inventory or photograph from that century has been cited in the sources consulted. - Where exactly did Marie Lea-Wilson buy it, and from whom? The accounts say Edinburgh in the early 1920s, which is consistent with the Dowell's sales of 1921 and 1922, but the link between Major Charles Noel's five-guinea purchase and her acquisition is not documented in the sources consulted. - What happened to the original frame that Ciriaco Mattei paid for as part of the 125 scudi in 1603? - Will the Odesa version go home? A Kyiv court ordered its return in August 2025 and the order is in force, but the painting was still in Kyiv when exhibited in 2026. - Has Petrucci's Ariccia argument been answered in print by the National Gallery of Ireland or by Caravaggio specialists, beyond the curatorial comments quoted in the press? ## Sources - [1] National Gallery of Ireland, online collection, object 2882, 'The Taking of Christ', loan number L.14702. The institutional catalogue record. Used for the credit line, the dimensions, and the complete provenance list including the 27 January 1802 sale to Hamilton Nisbet, the Dowell's sales of 25 June 1921 (lot 30, eight guineas, John Kent Richardson) and 3 May 1922 (lot 480, five guineas, Major Charles Noel), the Lea-Wilson gift and the fourteen recorded exhibitions 1994-2024. - [2] National Gallery of Ireland, 'How did a masterpiece by Caravaggio end up in a Dublin dining room?', published for the 25-years-on-display exhibition. Used for the August 1990 visit, the three years of research and consultation, the 16 November 1993 unveiling in Caravaggio: The Master Revealed, and the loan terms. - [3] Wikipedia, 'The Taking of Christ (Caravaggio)'. Used for the 1786 Vasi misattribution and its repetition in the 1793 family inventory, the count of at least twelve known copies, and the Cappelletti and Testa find in the Recanati cellar. Tertiary; flagged for replacement with the 1993 Burlington articles themselves. - [4] The Irish Times, 'The mystery of Ukraine's Caravaggio: the second Taking of Christ?', 24 December 2023. Used for the Odesa picture's provenance from the 1868 Basilevsky sale through the 1870 Romanov gift and the 1901 transfer, the 1951 Grabar Institute X-rays, the July 2008 theft and the cutting of the canvas, the Formichev undercover recovery in Berlin in 2010, the impounding as evidence and the delayed restoration from March 2018, the five indicted men and the absence of convictions, the 1626 Attili copy commission at 12 scudi, Benedetti's rebuttal, Natalia Chechykova's case and Aoife Brady's response. - [5] Journal of Art in Society, 'Murder, Caravaggio and the Taking of Christ'. Used for Percival Lea-Wilson at the Rotunda in 1916 and the treatment of Tom Clarke, the shooting at Gorey on 15 June 1920, the Harry Clarke memorial window and its inscription, Marie Lea-Wilson's medical career and death in 1971, the Edinburgh purchase and the gift to Father Thomas Finlay, and Benedetti's description of the picture's condition in 1990. - [6] Art-Test, 'The Taking of Christ by Caravaggio, the authorship of the one in Dublin seems increasingly challenging to argue'. Used for Francesco Petrucci's argument from the Ariccia version: the X-ray and reflectographic evidence, the cinnabar red, madder lake and smalt, and the claim that the scar on Judas's left hand is distorted in the Dublin picture in a way that indicates a copyist. - [7] Wikipedia, 'Caravaggio'. Used for the artist dossier: birth and death, Del Monte and the Contarelli Chapel, the killing of Ranuccio Tomassoni on 29 May 1606 and the capital sentence, the Malta and Sicily years, the single signed painting, and the working method of painting direct from models on a dark ground with scored guidelines and almost no drawing. Tertiary; flagged for replacement with a standard monograph. - [8] Intent (Ukrainian regional media), 'Court allows return of Caravaggio painting to Odesa museum', 2026. Used for the Podil District Court of Kyiv ruling of 28 August 2025 coming into force after the prosecutor's appeal was dismissed. - [9] Wikimedia Commons file records for the Odesa version (before the theft, after recovery in 2010, and after restoration in 2026) and for the National Gallery of Ireland's colour-corrected image of the Dublin picture, with the Ministry of Culture of Ukraine release cited on the 2026 file. Used for the restoration dates of 2018 to 2021, the 2026 Saint Sophia of Kyiv display, and the dimension variants. - [10] The Burlington Magazine, November 1993, vol. 135 no. 1088, contents. Sergio Benedetti, 'Caravaggio's Taking of Christ, a Masterpiece Rediscovered', which opens with Gaspare Celio's guide to the pictures of Rome, written before 1620 and published in Naples in 1638; and Francesca Cappelletti and Sergio Benedetti, 'The Documentary Evidence of the Early History of Caravaggio's Taking of Christ', which opens on the record of payment of 125 scudi in Ciriaco Mattei's libro di rincontro del banco and names the Pinacoteca Capitolina Saint John. Contents pages and article openings retrieved; the full text is behind the magazine's paywall. --- Images on this record are public domain or CC0 and are hosted by us. No image on this site is generated or simulated. If you quote this record, quote the provenance grades with it.