Prado is the first to show Caravaggio, which was discovered in 2021

An ‘Ecce homo’ that ended up at auction for next to nothing in 2021 turned out to be a work by Caravaggio. It has now been restored, the first for the Prado in Madrid.

In April 2021, Spanish authorities stopped an auction in Madrid of a painting attributed to a student of José de Ribera, a 17th-century Spanish painter. The canvas had been offered by the Spanish auction house Ansorena for a starting price of 1,500 euros, but Italian experts sounded the alarm when they noticed it in the auction catalogue. The Museo del Prado in Madrid warned the government that it could be a Caravaggio. The work was promptly declared cultural heritage and an export ban followed.

London and New York-based gallery Colnaghi then oversaw the work’s authentication and extensive restoration. One of the experts, Maria Cristina Terzaghi of Roma Tre University, said: “The speed at which consensus emerged was unprecedented for a painter on whom specialists have rarely agreed in the past 40 years.”

According to Miguel Falomir, director of the Prado, it is now certain that it is a real Caravaggio who arrived in Spain in the 17th century.

Bidding battle

The Ecce homo (“Behold the Man”) shows Christ wearing a crown of thorns. It is a late work by the Italian Baroque artist, painted between 1605 and 1609. It was probably once part of the private collection of Philip IV of Spain. It is now added to the small oeuvre of approximately 60 known works by Caravaggio.

Since the 19th century the Ecce homo is in a private collection in Madrid. In 1821, the Spanish diplomat Evaristo Pérez de Castro Méndez had received the work in exchange for a number of paintings he had donated to the Academia de San Fernando.

His heirs recently offered it for sale again after the attribution to Caravaggio and the restoration. It was sold for an undisclosed amount. The discovery that it was an authentic Caravaggio will undoubtedly have led to a fierce bidding war. A previous auction of a work by the Italian Baroque artist, in 2019, achieved a record amount of 150 million euros.

The new owners, who wish to remain anonymous, will show the work for the first time in the Prado at the end of this month. It will be on display from May 28 to the end of October.