The Calling of Saint Matthew, 1599 Michelangelo Merisi da Caravaggio (1571-1610)

We create our paintings with museum quality and covering the highest academic standards. Once we get your order, it will be entirely hand-painted with oil on canvas. All the materials we use are the highest level, being totally artist graded painting materials and linen canvas.

We will add 1.6" (4 cm) additional blank canvas all over the painting for stretching.

High quality and detailing in every inch are time consuming. The reproduction of Michelangelo Merisi da Caravaggio also needs time to dry in order to be completely ready for shipping, as this is crucial to not be damaged during transportation.
Based on the size, level of detail and complexity we need 10-14 weeks to complete the process.

In case the delivery date needs to be extended in time, or we are overloaded with requests, there will be an email sent to you sharing the new timelines of production and delivery.

TOPofART wants to remind you to keep patient, in order to get you the highest quality, being our mission to fulfill your expectations.

We not stretch and frame our oil paintings due to several reasons:
Painting reproduction is a high quality expensive product, which we cannot risk to damage by sending it being stretched.
Also, there are postal restrictions, regarding the size of the shipment.
Additionally, due to the dimensions of the stretched canvas, the shipment price may exceed the price of the product itself.

You can stretch and frame your painting in your local frame-shop.

Once the painting The Calling of Saint Matthew is ready and dry, it will be shipped to your delivery address. The canvas will be rolled-up in a secure postal tube.

We offer free shipping as well as paid express transportation services.

After adding your artwork to the shopping cart, you will be able to check the delivery price using the Estimate Shipping and Tax tool.

The paintings we create are only of museum quality. Our academy graduated artists will never allow a compromise in the quality and detail of the ordered painting. TOPofART do not work, and will never allow ourselves to work with low quality studios from the Far East. We are based in Europe, and quality is our highest priority.

The Calling of St Matthew, a pendant to the previous painting and hanging opposite it in the Contarelli Chapel, was particularly appropriate to both the place and the time, for Rome's French community had something to celebrate: Henri IV, heir to St Louis, had recently converted to the faith of his ancestors.
On this occasion, Caravaggio adhered to the biblical narrative relating to the apostle's conversion. Levi, a rich tax-gatherer or publican, is called by Christ out of darkness into God's light. Natural daylight, from some window high up on a wall to the right (mimicking the actual fall of light in the chapel) touches Christ's halo, face and right hand and the faces of the two youths who react to his presence, but not the eyes of the figures on the left who ignore it. The focus is on Levi, Matthew-to-be, whose attention is caught by Christ's glance and whose gesture queries whether it is he who is called. Complex rhythms of hands and feet, verticals and horizontals, reds and browns unify the picture, and a mood of serenity suffuses the moment of spiritual enlightenment.
In his drama of conversion Caravaggio shows his debts to northern European and northern Italian art. There was a Flemish tradition of pictures of money-lenders; and the two figures at the left, absorbed in the counting of coins, derive from Holbein. The two youths to the right with their plumed hats are Giorgionesque. But there is a Roman solemnity about the figures to the far right, for Christ and St Peter wear antique, timeless costume; and connoisseurs would have recognized in Christ's pointing gesture the reversed pose of the hand of Michelangelo's Adam on the ceiling of the Sistine Chapel. The divine and eternal nature of the message is stressed for the contemporary viewer.