Caravaggio painted several versions of Saint John the Baptist around 1603, depicting him as a brooding, melancholic youth, which was an innovative and unusual representation for the time. These paintings broke from tradition by showing him as an isolated figure, often with subtle, almost secondary attributes like the lambskin, and created an atmosphere of introspection and mystery. Scholars have proposed various interpretations for the works, sometimes debating whether the subject is purely religious or if they also carry secular meaning, such as a representation of a specific temperament or even a mythological figure like Paris.