Is it a luxury or a challenge to organize a museum show around a single masterpiece?

It’s a bit of both, according to John Marciari, director of curatorial affairs at New York’s Morgan Library and Museum, as the venue prepares to open “Caravaggio’s Boy with a Basket of Fruit in Focus” on January 16.

As the title suggests, the show is built around the titular Caravaggio, which itself is a landmark loan from the Galleria Borghese in Rome, through a partnership with the Foundation for Italian Art and Culture (FIAC).

The mission of FIAC, which was spearheaded by Italian journalist and Agnelli empire heir, Alain Elkann, is to bring great works of Italian art to American museums. Italophiles may remember the milestone Jacopo da Pontormo Visitation show at the Morgan in 2018–19 that was also a FIAC initiative, sparked in part by the renovations to Pieve dei Santi Michele e Francesco, the Italian church that housed it.

“Every situation is different, but essentially the conversations about the Caravaggio began with Alain and [Morgan director] Colin Bailey talking about the next potential project,” Marciari told me in a phone interview. “Caravaggio is desirable. He’s one of the few Old Masters who has an immediate audience, even if you only have one,” Marciari added, saying that he and Borghese director Francesca Cappelletti were eventually looped into talks that now stretch back a few years in the planning.

“Next thing you know, here’s the Caravaggio in New York,” said Marciari, noting that its last journey here was several decades ago when it was part of a major Caravaggio show at the Metropolitan Museum of Art).

The next steps for Marciari involved how best to showcase this rare jewel for its three-month star turn. His thoughtful approach is sure to be a revelatory and educational experience for viewers.

Now, Marciari asked himself, “What do you put in that gallery with it? I mean you could just put one picture up and put a few benches in there, and people would be delighted. But given the opportunity, what interesting context could I create for it?”

Giuseppe Arcimboldo, Four Seasons in One Head (c. 1590). Courtesy National Gallery of Art, Washington, Paul Mellon Fund.

So, rather than trying to borrow two or three other Caravaggios from American museums (which was “one obvious idea”), he thought it would be interesting to show Caravaggio alongside other artists, “which doesn’t doesn’t happen as often as you think. There are Caravaggio shows from time to time, but it tends to be sort of in isolation.”

The end result is a tightly focused gallery with 13 artworks by various artists, who both preceded and succeeded Caravaggio, under sections labeled “Influences” and “The Caravaggio Effect” respectively.

“What I’m trying to do is let people see where Caravaggio comes from. He’s one of art history’s bad boys and he’s a revolutionary character for the history of painting who does change the course of Italian art. But he doesn’t erupt out of a vacuum—there are precedents. Scholars have long argued the Lombard naturalism in his training in Milan, and the work of slightly older contemporaries like Annibale Carracci.”

Marciari is also aiming to show the impact that Boy With A Basket of Fruit, and other early subject pictures that the artist created in Rome, had on the next generation of artists. “So that is essentially the framework of the show.”

Attributed to Marco d’Oggiono, Girl with Cherries (c. 1491–95) The Metropolitan Museum of Art, Marquand Collection, Gift of Henry G. Marquand.

The earliest painting in the show is Girl with Cherries (ca 1495), attributed to Marco’Oggiono, a follower of Leonardo da Vinci, which Marciari called an “interesting comparison,” given the similar subject matter, though “obviously much more old fashioned than the Caravaggio.”

Marciari noted that the combination of naturalism—painting the fruit realistically but also blending with allegory, is “a sort of muddying of the waters, muddying of the thought of what a picture is and how we read pictures, that comes out of Leonardo. It’s a fundamental part of Milanese painting through the 16th century.”

Also included in the “Influences” section is Carracci’s A Boy Drinking (c. 1583), from a private collection, which has never been exhibited publicly before; and drawings from two of Caravaggio’s teachers, Simone Peterzano and Giuseppe Cesari.

Gian Lorenzo Bernini, Portrait of Cardinal Scipione Borghese (c. 1632). The Morgan Library & Museum, IV, 176. Photo by Steven H. Crossot. Image courtesy the Morgan Library and Museum.

Fittingly, the exhibition concludes with a work from the Morgan’s own collection: a portrait drawing by Gianlorenzo Bernini of Cardinal Scipione Borghese, the collector largely responsible for the Galleria Borghese, who was the early owner of Boy with a Basket of Fruit, which has been part of the Borghese collection since 1607.

“I think for some people it will be eye-opening for where Caravaggio fits in the narrative,” Marciari said. “Your average museum-goer has a sense of Caravaggio and why is he special. It’s a nice way of letting people gently draw their own conclusions about how he fits into his movement.”

“Caravaggio’s ‘Boy With A Basket of Fruit’ In Focus” is on view at the Morgan Library and Museum, 225 Madison Ave, New York, January 16–April 19, 2026.