From an indefinite dark background, which reveals the brown preparation of the canvas, the figure of the young David emerges, like a vision that materializes. Her hair is blown by a light breeze, her cheeks are red from the fight just ended with the giant Goliath. The crude realism of Goliath's head, raised by the young shepherd like a battle trophy, counterbalances the melancholy disturbance of David, whose gaze is suspended in the direction of the observer. Compared to the other version preserved in the museum, in this canvas the influence of the Lombard Mannerist tradition is less predominant and the Caravaggesque suggestions of the Roman-Neapolitan period of Tanzio (circa 1582 - 1633) still dominate: the citation of David del Merisi today at the Galleria Borghese in Rome, evident above all in the detail of the portrait-head of Goliath, it is only the most conspicuous of the matrices readable in the painting.