Newly verified Caravaggio painting goes on display in Spain: NPR

A painting by Caravaggio entitled Ecce Homowhich was recently verified as a work by the Italian master after being mistakenly attributed to another artist, is on display at the Prado Museum in Madrid, Spain on May 27.

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A painting by iconic Italian master Caravaggio, mistakenly attributed to another artist, will go on public display in Spain from Tuesday.

Called Ecce HomoThe oil painting on canvas was put up for auction in 2021, but the Spanish government halted the sale, fearing it was a lost work by the artist. artist.

Then, in early May, the Prado National Museum announced that a group of art historians and restorers had concluded that the painting was in fact a creation by Caravaggio.

“Since its reappearance at auction three years ago, Ecce Homo represented one of the greatest discoveries in art history, inspiring an unprecedented consensus around its authentication,” the museum said.

The Prado is showing the painting, on loan to the museum from its owner, whom the museum has not named, in a one-room exhibition through October 13.

Art experts believe that Michelangelo Merisi da Caravaggio created the painting between 1605 and 1609, during which time the artist spent part of his life on the run after killing a man in Rome and fleeing the city.

Ecce Homo – Latin for “Here comes the man!” — depicts the Roman governor Pontius Pilate presenting Jesus Christ to a crowd of spectators in the final days before his crucifixion.

It is one of 60 known works by Caravaggio still in existence, according to the Prado, and is believed to have been part of the private collection of the Spanish King Philip IV.

The painting was wrongly attributed to a student of the Spanish artist José de Ribera when it reappeared in 2021 and was put up for sale at a Madrid auction house.