The Last Caravaggio?

The Rembrandt House Museum is showing St John the Baptist Reclining (1610) under the exhibition heading The Last Caravaggio: World Premiere. This is the first time the work has been on public display in the four hundred years since it was painted. Experts reckon it's the real deal. A damned good clean might prove the experts right or wrong. It is filthy, and I've needed to play around with the gamma setting to bring out some of the details. (Click the title link for the original graphic.) The painting lacks the drama and story-telling of Caravaggio's earlier works, yet he did make something of a speciality of St John the Baptist and this rendering of the saint does show Caravaggio's mastery of anatomy. But that flat, lifeless background looks wrong.