The Prado Museum has confirmed the authorship of Caravaggio

The painting was previously considered lost; among its former owners is King Philip IV of Spain.

A small work entitled "Ecce Homo" (circa 1605-1609), depicting Jesus crowned with thorns before the crucifixion, was auctioned for just 1,500 euros by the Madrid auction house Ansorena in 2021, which presented it as a work from the circle of José de Ribera (1588-1652), one of Caravaggio’s most important followers. The auction was suspended last year due to suspicions that it may belong to the brush of Caravaggio. The cost of a genuine Caravaggio can be in the tens of millions of euros (dollars), if not more.

The Prado said in a statement that Michelangelo Merisi da Caravaggio’s "Ecce Homo" (Latin for "Behold Man") will be on display from May 27 to October as a special one-off exhibition, following an agreement with a new owner, whose identity has not been revealed.

After October, the work will be moved to the permanent collection of the Prado for another four months.

“Since its reappearance at auction three years ago, Ecce Homo has represented one of the greatest discoveries in art history,” the museum said in a statement. “The painting, painted by the great Italian artist around 1605-09, is one of 60 known works by Caravaggio and thus one of the most valuable works of Old Master art in the world,” the Prado added.

In April 2021, Spanish authorities suspended the auction of the work, which was then attributed to a student of 17th-century Spanish artist José de Ribera. They also banned its export after the museum warned the government about possible misattribution.

The director of the Prado Museum, Miguel Falomir, said that the owners carried out research and began restoring the painting, as a result of which it turned out “that this is indeed the work of Caravaggio, who arrived in Spain in the 17th century.”

Now the painting will not be able to leave Spain without government permission.

Falomir said it had been in the hands of the same family in Madrid since the 19th century. Earlier this year, the family was allowed to sell the painting privately after reaching an agreement with the Madrid regional government. The new owner wanted a public presentation of the work to take place at the Prado Museum.

“For our part, we are very pleased to present to the public and critics this new, unseen work by Caravaggio,” Falomir said in a video message published by the museum.

The oil on canvas painting depicts the biblical passage “Ecce Homo” in which Jesus Christ appears before the crucifixion. The size of the work is 111 by 86 centimeters.

The Prado said that four of the most authoritative experts on Caravaggio and Baroque painting confirm the authorship of the great master.

One of the experts, Maria Cristina Terzaghi, said that “The speed of consensus that this work was Caravaggio’s, following its rediscovery, was absolutely unprecedented in the critical history of an artist about whom scholars have rarely agreed, at least, in the last forty years.”

The Prado said that since April 2021 the work has been under the care of the Colnaghi Art Gallery in collaboration with experts. The restoration of the painting was carried out by specialist Andrea Cipriani and his team under the supervision of experts from the regional government of Madrid.

The painting is believed to have entered the private collection of King Philip IV of Spain in 1664, and was then exhibited in the apartment of his son, Charles II, from 1701 to 1702. In 1816, the work entered the collection of Manuel Godoy, the Spanish Secretary of State of Charles IV, and was then bequeathed to the Academy of San Fernando. In 1821, the academy donated it to the Spanish diplomat Evaristo Perez de Castro Mendez. The work remained in his family until 2024, when it was inherited by the three children of Antonio Pérez de Castro, founder of the Madrid design school IADE, and the artist Mercedes Mendes Atard.