How Caravaggio Painted Class and Clothes

Editor’s Note: This is an excerpt from Street Style: Art and Dress in the Time of Caravaggio by Elizabeth Currie. It releases in December from Reaktion Books.
More than any other work by Caravaggio, closely observed fabrics and dress styles are fundamental to the narrative of The Cardsharps. The differences between the figures’ garments are juxtaposed to provide clues about their relationship and possible identities. Of the three, the naive youth on the left is shown in the