A Couple of Caravaggio Fruit Baskets and Carlos

In my last blog "The Madonna of the Basket" posted on 12/25/25, I mentioned that I wasn't able to find much about Italian Renaissance basketry in my quick perusal of the internet. But what I did find were two more Italian Renaissance paintings that feature baskets in both images and titles. Both of these oil on canvas works were produced by artist Michelangelo Merisi da Caravaggio.

Caravaggio, Boy With a Basket of Fruit
Galleria Borghese, Rome (photo: Wikipedia)

“Boy With a Basket of Fruit” (c1593) is part of the collection at Rome's Galleria Borghese in Rome.    

(photo: Wikipedia)

"The basket looks extraordinarily real and vivid," a L.A. Times review explains. 

https://www.latimes.com/entertainment/arts/la-ca-cm-caravaggio-getty-20171220-htmlstory.html

Below: detail of the basket held by the boy.

Caravaggio, The Basket of Fruit
Ministero dei Beni e delle Attivita
 Culturali e del Turismo — Galleria Borghese

Caravaggio created "The Basket of Fruit” a few years later, and reportedly it has been in the Pinacoteca Ambrosiana in Milan since then (c1597-1600).  This same website gives a glowing description of the painting, but the description of the basket itself is very short – “realistically painted wicker braiding.”

https://www.visit-milan-italy.com/museums/ambrosiana/caravaggio-basket-of-fruit-ambrosiana-milan-italy.html

 Detail, rim of the basket of fruit.

About these basketry descriptions. Real and vivid, yes. Realistically painted? Sure, but it makes me wonder what the comparison was - where are the actual Italian Renaissance baskets hiding, do any exist in museum collections?  

These "braided" baskets look like wicker to me. The website of Museo dell'Intreccio Mediterraneo - Castello dei Doria (Museum of Mediterranean Weaving - Doria Castle) in Sardinia, Italy, describes plaiting with two, three, and multiple weavers. But no illustrations of these techniques are provided. Caravaggio's boy's basket looks like three weavers, or wefts, were used. The fruit basket looks like four wefts, which were split into pairs to complete the rim. 

https://www.mimcastelsardo.it/en/index.html

As to what they are made out of, I found a couple of websites that discuss modern Italian baskets. Museo dell'Intreccio Mediterraneo provides materials including cane, dried wheat culm, dwarf palm, myrtle, oak, olive, willow, sea and lake hay. Elm, hazel, oak and reeds are listed on other websites.  As with basketry world-over, local baskets are made with locally available materials. My guess here would be that Caravaggio painted willow baskets, based on comparisons to similar willow baskets made in the Pueblos of the American Southwest and northern California.

How are these types of baskets actually woven? Sometimes, actions speak louder than words. The Museum of Indian Arts and Culture in Santa Fe, New Mexico, created a very informative video of artist Carlos Herrera, a Cochiti Pueblo weaver, creating a plaited willow basket. Here's the link:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=__mzqSMitRU

Willow Basket by Carlos Herrera,
Cochiti Pueblo, 2021
lower side view

Although I don't have an Italian Renaissance basket photo to share, I do have a photo of a basket made by Carlos Herrera that I purchased from him at the Santa Fe Indian Market in 2021. It is made of willow.  Willow baskets such as these are made by various Pueblo tribes, and by tribes in Northern California. Yet again, a topic for a future blogpost.

Willow Basket by Carlos Herrera,
Cochiti Pueblo, 2021
top view

The Madonna of the Basket

Renaissance painter Antonio Allegri da Correggio is also known as Correggio, which is the name of the Italian town where the artist was born in 1489. Pertinent to this Christmas Day blogpost is his painting The Madonna of the Basket.

The Madonna of the Basket by Antonio Allegri da Correggio
circa 1524, oil on wood
National Gallery of London, inventory number NG23

The painting's entry on the website of the National Gallery of London calls the basket a "work basket with its iron shears and ball of grey wool," seemingly equating Mary to an ordinary person with ordinary tasks. As is her husband Joseph, seen toiling as a carpenter in the background.  https://www.nationalgallery.org.uk/paintings/correggio-the-madonna-of-the-basket

About the basket itself, I found little other descriptive information on my quick survey of websites. 

Helpfully, Artera tells us "The 'basket' refers to the container on the lower left of the painting."  https://www.artera.ae/artworks/abd8f87a-31b2-4086-90b3-2a58c8777257

The basket certainly is tucked into the corner! It's interesting that this minor player earned the title role.

The Web Gallery of Art is a bit more descriptive, letting us know that "Sitting outdoors under a tree, the Virgin, workbasket at her side, is trying a jacket she has just made on the Christ Child."  https://www.wga.hu/html_m/c/correggi/madonna/basket.html

Nowhere did I find a description of the weave nor potential  materials that may have been used in the basket. It looks like it's braided.

 Without seeing the painting in person, and relying on online photos, I think it's more likely a wicker basket. More on this in my next blogpost...soon.

The painting is in the public domain   https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Madonna_of_the_Basket_(Correggio)