Boy Bitten by a Lizard

As with all of Caravaggio's early output, much about this painting remains conjectural, and the identity of the model has been debated. One theory is that the model was Mario Minniti, Caravaggio's companion and the model for several other paintings from the period; the bouffant, curly dark hair and pursed lips look similar, but in other pictures such as Boy with a Basket of Fruit and The Fortune Teller Mario looks less effeminate. Michael Fried has proposed instead that the painting is a disguised self-portrait of Caravaggio. Fried argues that the subject's hands - one stretched out, the other raised up - are in a similar position to those of a painter holding a palette while painting.