Michelangelo Merisi de Caravaggio, “Conversion of St. Paul”, Oil on Canvas, 1600-01
“The Conversion of Saint Paul (or Conversion of Saul” by the Italian painter Michelangelo Merisi de Caravaggio, is housed in the Odescalchi Balbi Collection of Rome. It is one of at least two paintings by Caravaggio of the conversion of Paul. Another is “The Conversion of Saint Paul on the Road to Damascus”, which is housed in the Cerasi Chapel of Santa Maria del Popolo.
The painting, together with a “Crucifixion of Saint Peter”, was commissioned by Monsignor (later Cardinal) Tiberio Cerasi, Treasurer-General to Pope Clement VIII, in September 1600. According to Caravaggio’s early biographer Giovanni Baglione, both paintings were rejected by Cerasi, and replaced by the second versions which hang in the chapel today. The dates of completion and rejection are determined from the death of Cerasi in May 1601.