Culturally Priceless Caravaggio Painting Rescued from Auction Now on Exhibit

Experts recognized an auction lot as a lost painting by Baroque master Caravaggio. Now the recovered painting depicting a scene from the Passion of Christ is going on exhibit at Madrid’s Prado Museum.

“Ecce Homo” (after restoration). Image courtesy of private collection/via Prado Museum

Sometimes, treasures hide in plain sight at auctions. In 2021, Ansorena, an auction house in Madrid, Spain, intended to sell a painting attributed to students of Spanish painter José de Ribera (1591-1652). The painting “Ecce Homo” shows a dramatic Biblical scene of Christ with a crown of thorns leading up to the Crucifixion. It had a starting price of €1,500, or about $1,600. Experts at the Prado Museum suspected it was worth even more—culturally priceless—and brought it to the attention of the Spanish Ministry of Culture, which stopped the sale and put an export ban on the painting. Ribera’s work is known for its similarity to the Baroque master Caravaggio (1571-1610). Experts suspected “Ecce Homo” was the work of Caravaggio himself.

Caravaggio is a pioneer of the Baroque art period, characterized by its realistic paintings, ornate detail and dramatic intensity. He is renowned for his use of chiaroscuro, a painting technique that uses the contrasts between light and dark to create the illusion of perspective or heighten the emotional impact of a scene. His paintings of religious and mythological scenes are often violent, as was his own life, marked by brawls and scandal. Today, about 60 of his paintings are in existence. They can be worth hundreds of millions of dollars.

Specialists determined that “Ecce Homo” was painted by Caravaggio between about 1605 and 1609. It was professionally restored and sold in a private sale. Its owner is loaning it to Madrid’s Prado Museum, which has called it “one of the most valuable old master artworks in the world.” The Prado will exhibit the painting from May 28 to Oct. 24, 2024, the first time in 500 years it will be on public display.

You may also like:

Spanish Family’s Wall Art is a Baroque Masterpiece 

Botched Art Restorations Shock Art Lovers

Lost Botticelli Masterpiece Valued at Over $108 Million Found in Southern Italy Home