Museo Nacional del Prado presents the lost Caravaggio: Ecce Homo, a masterpiece by the Italian painter

Since the Prado Museum alerted Spain's Ministry of Culture of the relevance of the painting when it reemerged at Ansorena auction house in April 2021 attributed to a pupil of José de Ribera, the work has been under the custodianship of the art gallery Colnaghi, in collaboration with Filippo Benappi (Benappi Fine Art) and Andrea Lullo (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.

MADRID, 27/05/2024 (informazione.it - comunicati stampa - arte e cultura)

Since its reappearance at auction three years ago, Ecce Homo has represented one of the greatest discoveries in the history of art, inspiring an unprecedented speed of consensus around its authentication. Following an in-depth diagnostic investigation by Claudio Falcucci – a nuclear engineer specialising in applying scientific techniques to the study and conservation of cultural heritage – restoration has been carried out in an informed and rigorous manner, allowing each decision to be based on an exhaustive assessment of the work's constituent materials, their specific alteration processes, and the painting's conservation history, reaffirming this initial attribution to the Italian master.

The unveiling of the Ecce Homo and the announcement of this loan is accompanied by a collaborative publication bringing together leading experts in the field with seminal essays by Keith Christiansen, Gianni Papi, Giuseppe Porzio and Maria Cristina Terzaghi, bearing testament to the work's monumental importance. Titled Caravaggio: The Ecce Homo Unveiled, it offers an essential starting point for the understanding of this new addition to Caravaggio's oeuvre.