There are many strange images in Naples depicting everything from the sacred to the profane – and pretty much every possible mixture of the two.
But the picture of a young woman letting an old man suck her naked breast must be among the most remarkable. All the more so because it helps form the centrepiece of a church.
It's part of Seven Works of Mercy by Caravaggio and was commissioned to go above the altar of the Pio Monte della Misericordia.
I'd seen pictures of the painting and, to be honest, wondered what all the fuss was about. It seemed to be a dark, disjointed and downright odd piece of work.
But when I walked in and saw the real thing, I got it straight away. It's big, bold and utterly overpowering.
That breastfeeding covers two works of mercy (visiting the imprisoned and feeding the hungry) and comes from the classical Roman story of Pero, a woman who breastfed – and ultimately saved – her father when he was locked up and sentenced to starve to death.
The other manifestations of mercy shown are: clothing the naked, giving shelter to the homeless, giving drink to the thirsty, visiting the sick, and burying the dead. And Caravaggio brings it all back home to Napoli; as Peter Robb says in his excellent book Street Fight in Naples: "... the angels looked as if they'd parked their Vespa round the corner... Mary seemed about to lower a basket for a loaf of bread or a packet of Marlboro..."
There are other paintings in Misericordia, but they only serve to show how far Caravaggio was ahead of – and then an influence on – his contemporaries.
He basically dared to go where other artists hadn't dreamed of going.
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