Analysis of information sources in references of the Wikipedia article "Rapaz Mordido por um Lagarto" in Portuguese language version.
It is an ignoble position for a male, one that Caravaggio, when he borrowed the motif, was careful to dignify by eroticizing. As Roberto Longhi first observed, Caravaggio is likely to have taken from Anguissola the finger-biting motif in his Boy Bitten by a Lizard; the point is reiterated in recent literature (e.g., Mina Gregori's catalogue entry in The Age of Caravaggio).[ligação inativa]