The painting dates from Caravaggio's first years in Rome following his arrival from his native Milan in mid-1592.
The Sick Bacchus was among the many works making up the collection of Giuseppe Cesari, one of Caravaggio's early employers, which was seized by the art-collector Cardinal-Nephew Scipione Borghese in 1607, together with the Boy Peeling Fruit and Boy with a Basket of Fruit.