The Lost Caravaggio: The Ecce Homo Unveiled

Thanks to the generosity of its new owner, the Ecce Homo by Caravaggio was displayed at the Museo Nacional del Prado from 28 May 2024 until 23 February 2025.

Painted by the great Italian master around 1605–09 and believed to have once formed part of the private collection of Philip IV of Spain, the work is one of approximately sixty known paintings by Caravaggio in existence, making it one of the most valuable Old Master artworks in the world. The painting enriches the permanent collection of the Prado, which already houses one of the few works by the artist in a Spanish collection, David and Goliath, recently restored to recover its original colours and contrasts.

After the Prado Museum alerted Spain’s Ministry of Culture to the importance of the painting following its reappearance at the Ansorena auction house in April 2021, where it had been attributed to a follower of Jusepe de Ribera, the work came under the custodianship of Colnaghi in collaboration with Filippo Benappi of Benappi Fine Art and Andrea Lullo of Lullo Pampoulides.

The painting was restored by specialist Andrea Cipriani and his team under the supervision of experts from the Comunidad de Madrid regional government. The results of this intricate restoration process were documented in a comprehensive publication featuring essays by leading scholars including Keith Christiansen, Gianni Papi, Giuseppe Porzio, and Maria Cristina Terzaghi, released to coincide with the unveiling.

Since its reappearance at auction three years earlier, Ecce Homo has represented one of the most significant rediscoveries in the history of art, inspiring an unprecedentedly swift scholarly consensus regarding its attribution. Following an extensive diagnostic investigation by Claudio Falcucci, restoration was carried out with exceptional rigour, allowing every intervention to be informed by a detailed understanding of the painting’s materials, condition, and conservation history, ultimately reaffirming its attribution to Caravaggio.

The unveiling of the painting, together with the announcement of the loan by its new owner, was accompanied by the publication Caravaggio: The Ecce Homo Unveiled, a collaborative volume bringing together some of the world’s foremost specialists in Caravaggio and Baroque painting. Through essays examining the work’s discovery, provenance, stylistic and technical characteristics, iconography, critical reception, and the artist’s Neapolitan legacy, the publication establishes an essential foundation for understanding this major addition to Caravaggio’s oeuvre.

The contributions by Maria Cristina Terzaghi, Gianni Papi, Giuseppe Porzio, and Keith Christiansen each approach the work from distinct scholarly perspectives, yet all converge on the same conclusion: that Ecce Homo is unquestionably a masterpiece by Caravaggio.