Now you have seen the documentary programmes broadcast by BBC television in recent years and been inspired by the Italian painter Michaelangelo Merisi, known as Caravaggio, and left wanting to know more about this most short-lived of master painters (1571-1610), there is an opportunity to see an unique example of his work at the Buckingham Palace Gallery.

Caravaggio left few sketches or examples of preparatory work. What is known of his paintings consists for the most part in masterly works themselves. The dramatic intensity he is credited with introducing to painting finds its most powerful expression through the development of his technique of chiaroscuro, the treatment of light and dark areas in a picture. Nothing of Caravaggio’s early works are thought to exist.

Then a visit by an Italian expert to Hampton Court Palace changed all that. The expert was shown a large painting in a cupboard during a recent visit to the Palace. This picture was considered a copy of Caravaggio’s ‘The Calling of Saints Peter and Andrew’, the original of which dated to 1602-1604 was believed lost. On close inspection the expert, however, detected clear evidence of the master’s hand. Subsequently, after further investigation, the picture was declared the original and not a copy.

Tucked away in the cupboard with this work was a much smaller picture which the expert also took great interest in. The painting, oil on canvas, depicts a boy seated at a table, facing the viewer, peeling a fruit with a knife. There is a selection of fruits on the table including plums, nectarines or peaches and apples. This has now been verified as a previously unknown work by Caravaggio. What is of real interest is the date attributed to it of 1592-93. Until this discovery no work of such an early date by the master was believed to exist. It is thought that the painting was made as a private commission by a wealthy patron who recognised in the young Caravaggio a new departure in art. If so, he was not wrong to do so, for not long after Caravaggio set up as a painter in his own-right and became one of the founders of the new Baroque style in Italy.

Already in this painting Caravaggio - who was only 21 at the time - is exploring the potential of chiaroscuro. Surrounding the boy with a dark background, exploring the folds of his shirt with subtle shadows, and, by the concentration of light on the boy’s face and hands, draws the viewer’s attention to the hands manipulating the fruit and the knife. Who else in the history of painting has turned such a simple act into a moment of drama?

The Exhibition: ‘The Art of Italy in the Royal Collection, Renaissance and Baroque’, is now showing at the Queen’s Gallery, Buckingham Palace until 20 January 2008.