Caravaggio's The Cardsharps shows a well-dressed boy losing at cards to two men who are working together. It is a scene of deception and lost innocence, painted in Rome in the mid-1590s, early in the artist's career, and it is the picture that made his first great patron take notice.
The game is primero, an ancestor of poker. The boy is absorbed in his hand and does not see that the older man behind him is reading it and signaling to the third player. Caravaggio painted the moment just before the boy loses, and let gesture and glance carry the plot.
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The deception does not stop at the frame. There are two Cardsharps, and the second one was sold as a copy.
On 5 December 2006, at Sotheby's saleroom in Olympia, west London, a Cardsharps came up for auction as the work of a mere "follower" of Caravaggio. The estimate was 20,000 to 30,000 pounds. It sold for 42,000.
The buyer was acting at least in part for Sir Denis Mahon, the art historian and collector. Mahon later declared the picture an autograph replica, painted by Caravaggio himself. The man who had sold it for 42,000 pounds read that, and took Sotheby's to the High Court.
I don't think the price proves anyone was a fool. It shows how little separates a masterpiece from a copy when the experts cannot agree.
What You'll Discover
What the boy cannot see.
Who bought a picture of a swindle.
Where the original was lost.
What hides under a hat.
What the judge left undecided.