Caravaggio's David with the Head of Goliath — Hand-Painted Oil Reproduction

Unframed Classic Gold Dark Walnut Champagne Matte Black Gallery White Natural Oak Floater

Classic Gold — ornate gilt with a deep profile. The traditional choice for museum reproductions, portraits and period interiors.

All frames include free canvas stretching, mounting and wall hooks, so your painting arrives ready to hang. Tap a moulding to preview it on this painting.

Public-domain scan of the original shown for reference. Your canvas is hand-painted to order and photographed for your approval before shipping.

Reference image: David with the Head of Goliath-Caravaggio (1610).jpg — Caravaggio, via Wikimedia Commons, Public domain. Your canvas is hand-painted to order, so this scan is a reference rather than the finished product.

Price by canvas size

Every David with the Head of Goliath we paint is made to order, so the price tracks the canvas size and the amount of brushwork involved. These are the sizes our customers order most:

We benchmark every canvas against the published list price of the big Dafen export studios and stay $20 below it at every single size — the same painters, the same 400gsm linen and the same hand-painted process, without the platform margin. Estimates only: the final quote depends on your exact size, frame and shipping destination. Framing and shipping are quoted separately. Duties and import taxes are the buyer's responsibility (DAP).

Why a print cannot do this painting

Caravaggio painted light the way a stage does — a single hard source, everything else falling into a darkness that is still full of information. Copyists who reach for black lose that: in a real Caravaggio the shadow side of a face is still painted, still readable, just very dark.

A print reproduces the colour and the composition but none of that behaviour. The details that make David with the Head of Goliath worth looking at collapse into pattern, and the canvas stops being the thing that was made. Under a picture light, ours still behaves like paint.

There is a test we encourage buyers to use on any "oil painting" they are offered: run a fingernail very gently across the surface. A hand-painted canvas feels like terrain. A print feels like glass.

The painting itself

The head David holds out is Caravaggio's own face, painted in the last months of his life while he was fleeing a murder charge — a request for mercy from the executioner's boy.

We work without drawing on the canvas, blocking the lit passages directly and modelling skin from a warm earth base so the shadow never goes flat. No source is invented; the light direction in the original is followed exactly.. Reproducing it means solving those problems again at your chosen size rather than enlarging a photograph of someone else's answer.

How our painters reproduce it

Our studio is in Dafen Oil Painting Village, Shenzhen — the centre of hand-painted oil reproduction for more than thirty years. A David with the Head of Goliath here is not traced, projected or transferred. The painter works freehand from a high-resolution reference, in layers:

1. Composition and ground. The canvas is toned and the main forms laid out in a thin underpainting, matching the original proportions to your chosen size.
2. Colour build-up. The palette is mixed in oil, not acrylic — only oil gives the same depth, slow blending and the slightly translucent glow the original depends on.
3. Impasto and surface passes. The signature strokes go on last, loaded with paint, following the direction of the original's brushwork. This is the slowest and most skilful stage.
4. Drying and inspection. Layered oil needs days to set properly. We let it. Then the finished canvas is checked against the reference for colour, composition and stroke character.

We work without drawing on the canvas, blocking the lit passages directly and modelling skin from a warm earth base so the shadow never goes flat. No source is invented; the light direction in the original is followed exactly.

Where it hangs best

• Study
• Library
• Gallery hallway
• Gallery wall

Framing

Choose gold to echo the original's warmth, matte black for a contemporary room, walnut for a traditional interior, or no frame at all as a gallery-wrap canvas ready to hang. Frames are quoted separately and packed with corner protection.

How ordering works

1. Tell us the painting, size and frame. WhatsApp is fastest — include a wall photo if you want sizing advice.
2. Get an exact quote. Usually within the hour, with the timeline confirmed in writing.
3. 70% deposit starts the painting. Paid by bank transfer, PayPal, credit card or Wise.
4. We send photographs of the finished painting. You review it before anything ships. If something clearly does not match your order notes, tell us and we adjust it.
5. Pay the 30% balance, then we ship. Tracked worldwide courier, rolled in a rigid tube or crated if framed.

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