It has gone from 1,500 euros to 30 million. It has gone from being a painting attributed to the school of José de Ribera that was sold for a modest price in 2021 at the Ansorena auction gallery in Madrid to becoming one of the canvases that make up the exclusive list of the sixty Caravaggios that are in the world. An Ecce Homo that since its discovery three years ago at the auction, its rapid attribution to Caravaggio and its declaration by the Ministry of Culture of “inexportable” and of Asset of Cultural Interest by the Community of Madrid, has undergone an exhaustive restoration process and it ended up being sold for around 30 million euros to an owner who did not want to make his identity public, but who would be a British collector residing in Spain.
A philanthropist who, explains Jorge Coll – director of the Colnaghi gallery in Madrid and in whose hands the family that owns the painting, the Pérez de Castro, put the operation -, is not only going to lend it to the Prado Museum for nine months but also Then he wants “it to remain in public collections, there will be news later.” A desire for it to be exposed to the general public, which was also that of the selling family and which could have been decisive, in addition to its high price, so that public administrations have not exercised their right of first refusal and withdrawal to acquire this masterpiece. A work that according to Coll, if it had not been declared unexportable, could have reached “prices well above 100 million euros” in international markets.
Coll explained to a large representation of the Madrid press that the canvas, whose stretcher was narrower than the work and of which the original size has been recovered, has been subjected to a meticulous restoration process not in the workshops of the Prado Museum. , where it can be seen from May 28 until October, but not at the gallery headquarters itself after presenting the process they planned to follow to the Community of Madrid. A restoration carried out by a team led by Andrea Cipriani that, according to Coll, has meant that “if from the beginning there was almost total, if not total, consensus that it was a Caravaggio, now the initial instincts have been confirmed.”
A work with four centuries of life – it would be dated between 1605 and 1609 – that represents the historical motif of the Roman governor Pontius Pilate presenting Christ to the people with the words “Ecce homo” (“Behold the man”), one of the moments most dramatic scenes of the Passion, collected in the Gospel of John (19:5). The work, the Prado Museum points out, is a powerful example of Caravaggio’s mastery of the conception process: a skillful composition that presents a totally innovative three-dimensional and dynamic scene within the limits of a deep-rooted iconographic tradition.
Caravaggio’s Ecce Homo is possibly mentioned for the first time in an engagement written in Rome between the artist and the aristocrat Massimo Massimi, signed on June 25, 1605. The work is later mentioned in the inventory drawn up on the occasion of the march to Madrid of the wife of García de Avellaneda and Haro Delgadillo. Delgadillo was the second count of Castrillo (1588 – 1670) and viceroy of Naples (1653 – 1659).
Subsequently, the Ecce Homo became part of the private collection of Philip IV of Spain in 1666, and it is later mentioned that it was exhibited in the home of his son Charles II between 1701 and 1702. In 1789, the work is listed as exhibited in the Royal Site of the Casa de Campo, until 1816 when it was documented in the Buenavista Palace in Madrid as part of the collection of Manuel Godoy, Secretary of State of Charles IV and famous art collector.
Upon Godoy’s death, the painting was transferred to the Royal Academy of San Fernando and in 1821, Evaristo Pérez de Castro Méndez, a Spanish diplomat and honorary member of the Academy of San Fernando, received the Caravaggio in exchange for other paintings donated to it. academy of fine arts. The work remained in the family until it changed ownership in 2024.
