# Tribute Money [View the canonical artwork record]() ## Artwork - Artist: [PRETI, Mattia]() - Date: 1651-1700 - Technique: Oil on canvas, 193 x 143 cm ## Commentary Preti's biographer Dominici reports that this painting The Tribute Money was executed in Malta, where the painter had travelled in 1660 as a Knight of Malta in order to work on the decoration of the cathedral of San Giovanni. The painting is of particular interest in view of Preti's encounter with the works of Caravaggio who had executed some important paintings in Malta after 1607. The theme treated here is the biblical tale culminating in Christ's fateful words: "Render therefore unto Caesar the things which are Caesar's; and unto God the things that are God's." \(St Matthew, 22:21\) In the dark brown tones of the painting, we can barely make out the six figures half illuminated by a light from some indiscernible source. The tax collector pauses in his writing as Peter hands him the coin. Only this pause indicates the miracle that has just occurred: Peter found the coin in a fish he had caught at the command of Christ \(St Matthew 17:24\). The turban of a man, a hand holding a pen, another holding a coin, a face in profile with a deeply lined forehead, turned towards another face of which we can recognize only the temple and the nose, a bald head, a little red fabric and the heavy folds of a rough brown cloth are the scattered but not unconnected fragments from which our gaze wanders to and fro, reconstructing the narrative. ## Related artworks - [A Mother Entrusting Her Sons to Christ]() - [Absalom's Feast]() - [Aeneas, Anchises and Ascanius Fleeing Troy]() - [Beheading of St. Catherine]() - [Christ and the Woman Taken in Adultery]() - [Christ in Glory]() - [Concert \(detail\)]() - [Concert]() - [David Playing the Harp before Saul]() - [Decollation of St John \(detail\)]() - [Erminia, Princess of Antioch]() - [Painting in the choir: Crucifixion of St Andrew]() ## Attribution [Web Gallery of Art]()