This is the second Baptist painting in the Wilderness in Rome, after that held in the Corsini collection. The date is disputed: it was long thought to have been acquired by Cardinal Scipione Borghese some time between his own arrival in Rome in 1605 and Caravaggio's flight from the city in 1606, but Roberto Longhi dated it to the artist's Sicilian period (a date post-1608) on the basis of similarities in handling and colour. Lonhi's view has gained increasing acceptance, with a consensus in favour of 1610 emerging in recent years.

I don’t particularly care. I like how the boy slumps over the brilliant red cloth, and how the ram beside him fades into the background, its head turning back the other way. As always with Caravaggio, the expression is difficult to determine: is he bored, or dreaming?

By 1610 Caravaggio's life was unravelling. It's always dangerous to interpret an artist's works in terms of his life, but in this case the temptation is overwhelming. In 1606 he had fled Rome as an outlaw after killing a man in a street fight; in 1608 he had been thrown into prison in Malta and again escaped; through 1609 he had been pursued across Sicily by his enemies until taking refuge in Naples, where he had been attacked in the street by unknown assailants within days of his arrival. Now he was under the protection of the Colonna family in the city, seeking a pardon that would allow him to return to Rome. The power to grant the pardon lay in the hands of the art-loving Cardinal Borghese, who would expect to be paid in paintings.