The Lost Caravaggio: the Ecce hom*o Unveiled - Exhibition (2024)

The artwork

In the final days before Christ’s death by crucifixion, known as the Passion, he was arrested and tormented by Roman soldiers. After the flagellation, Jesus was brought before the Roman governor in Judea, Pontius Pilate. According to the Gospel of Saint John (19:2-5), Christ was presented to the crowd wearing a crown of thorns, a reed sceptre and purple robe. Arranged and dressed by his tormentors, each item symbolically mocks Christ’s claim to be King of the Jews. With the words “Behold the man!” (“Ecce hom*o”), Pilate announced the pitiful sight, showing Christ’s suffering.

The figure closest to the viewer, leaning emphatically over the balcony parapet, is Pilate. Engaging both the implied crowd and the viewer directly, Pilate is racked with indecision. Finding no evidence for the charge against him, the Roman governor hands Jesus’s fate to the crowd and he is condemned to die by shouts of “Crucify him!”. Brightly illuminated with the dramatic chiaroscuro typical of Caravaggio’s style, Christ occupies the centre of the composition. Vivid spots of blood echo the rich crimson of the robe mockingly draped across his shoulders by the soldier, contrasting his pale flesh. Sorrowful and resigned, Christ is caught in the middle of this tightly arranged group, positioned diagonally across the picture plane by the artist, with Christ’s reed sceptre drawing the viewer’s eye in the same direction. The final figure looms behind Christ with an open mouth, perhaps shouting to the crowd, heightening the sense of drama and indecision. Sharp points of white paint in his eyes convey turbulent emotions, but it’s unclear whether he is moved by hatred, panic or pity. The three characters each recall models used by Caravaggio in earlier paintings, their dramatic gestures characteristic of the artist’s preferred method for communicating narrative.

Caravaggio had to flee Rome, where he had gained fame as a painter, after fatally wounding a man named Ranuccio Tomassoni in 1606 during a dispute. To avoid the death penalty associated with the crime, the painter departed the city in May 1606, heading to Naples. Following a series of successful commissions, the artist travelled to Malta in 1607 and became a knight of the Order of Saint John. After little more than a year in Malta, Caravaggio departed suddenly, perhaps following the discovery of his criminal background. He then went to Sicily, and back to Naples, hoping to receive news on a possible pardon. TheEcce hom*owas painted during those troubled years and reflects the tension of a fugitive working desperately, pleading to be allowed back home to Rome. It demonstrates how his later work had developed into a quicker and more concise style compared to previous years, but never lacking precision in the details.

Caravaggio’sEcce hom*ois strongly connected to the history of Spanish collecting. Although it is not known for whom and when it was painted, it appears for the first time with a fair degree of certainty in 1631, amongst the assets of Juan de Lezcano, a secretary to the Spanish viceroy in Naples. Successively, and with absolute certainty, in 1657 it belonged to the Count of Castrillo, viceroy of Naples from 1653 to 1659. Sent to Madrid, the painting went to Philip IV and in 1666 it was at the Real Alcázar. It stayed in the Royal Collection, and was at the Casa de Campo in 1789. Later on, it belonged to Manuel Godoy, prime minister of Charles IV, and it passed to the Real Academia de Bellas Artes de San Fernando in the early nineteenth century, with part of Godoy’s paintings collection. In 1823, this institution exchanged it for a work by Alonso Cano with the politician Evaristo Pérez de Castro, from whose successors it has been acquired by the current owner.