The centrepiece of the exhibition is the painting Victorious Cupid painted for a fabulously wealthy marchese and his older brother, a cardinal. They lived in a vast palazzo in Rome that is recreated in the Wallace Collection for the exhibition.

One of the most provocative works Caravaggio ever painted goes on show for the first time in the UK next week. It’s Victorious Cupid, a full-frontal nude of a young boy, painted in Rome in the first year of the seventeenth century: and though it hasn’t lost its capacity to shock, it also shines a spotlight on a pivotal relationship the artist had with two brothers, one of whom was a cardinal, without whose patronage he might never have gone on to achieve the extraordinary fame he eventually did.

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