Content Details
Caravaggio’s Comb
Duration: 75′ / 52′
Language: English, French
Subtitle: English
Production Year: 2023
Format: HD
Origin: France
SYNOPSIS
Painted by Caravaggio in 1598, Marthe et Marie-Madeleine shows the conversion of Marie-Madeleine, leaving the delights of carnal seduction for the modest life advocated by her sister. In this boudoir, before us, an ivory comb with a broken tooth calls to mind the brevity of human beauty. But another question arises: how did this piece of ivory come to be in a 16th- century Roman interior? This object, which undoubtedly came from an elephant tusk brought by Portuguese merchants from the West coast of Africa, bears the traces of little-known history, that of the age-old supply of ivory to Europe. Mingling climatic transformations and variations in international trade, it lifts the veil on uninterrupted, ever-changing commerce that takes us from the far reaches of Greenland to the ports of Mozambique.