The return of the lost Caravaggio to Capodimonte

Until November 2, Caravaggio's Ecce Homo, painted in Naples four centuries ago and rediscovered in Madrid in 2021, is the special guest of the Museum and Royal Wood of Capodimonte, in dialogue with his masterpiece, The Flagellation of Christ. Both works were created during Caravaggio's stays in Naples (1606/1607 and 1609) and are now displayed in Room 62 in a highly evocative juxtaposition that places the famous altarpiece from the Church of San Domenico (owned by the Fondo Edifici di Culto, consigned to the museum in 1972 for conservation reasons) alongside the lost painting, which belonged to a viceroy of Naples—Garcia Avellaneda y Haro—in the mid-17th century.

The "Capodimonte Double Caravaggio" exhibition was inaugurated today by director Eike Schmidt, in the presence of Naples' mayor, Gaetano Manfredi. The exhibition also pays homage to the city's 2,500th anniversary celebrations and is an initiative promoted in collaboration with the City of Naples.

The Flagellation of Christ, following the success of the major Jubilee exhibition in Rome ('Caravaggio 2025', March 7 - July 20), has immediately returned to the Museum and Royal Wood of Capodimonte, bringing with it a special guest: the Spanish Ecce Homo, a painting that has been at the center of global scholarly and media debate in recent years. Following its attribution, the painting was immediately exhibited at the Prado Museum in Madrid, at the request of its new owner, and can currently leave Spain only for exceptional occasions.

"As soon as we learned that the Ecce Homo would be arriving in Italy," explained Eike Schmidt, director of the Museum and Royal Wood of Capodimonte, "we began working to have it in Naples at the end of the Jubilee exhibition, for which we had been asked to exhibit the Flagellation. The celebrations for Naples' 2,500th anniversary were a further motivation for this initiative. Our lending policy will always be geared towards placing Capodimonte at the forefront and celebrating its heritage. In particular, this special guest, for which we thank the Spanish Ministry of Culture and the Prado Museum, is also a unique opportunity for discussion that illustrates and documents the Neapolitan success of the Caravaggio model. In the same room, visitors will also find Battistello Caracciolo's Ecce Homo on display. 'Doppio Caravaggio' is part of the 'L'Ospite' series of small but valuable exhibitions that Capodimonte presents while completing energy efficiency improvements and the subsequent renovation of its spaces, in constant dialogue. with the great Italian and international museums".

In recent months, important works by Courbet, Carracci, Rubens, and Baglione have been 'guests' at Capodimonte.

"The inauguration of the 'Capodimonte Doppio Caravaggio' exhibition," declared Naples Mayor Gaetano Manfredi, "marks the return to the city of a highly interesting work, created during the artist's stays in Naples: the Ecce Homo. From the Prado Museum in Madrid to the Museum and Royal Wood of Capodimonte, its only Italian stop before its return to Spain, the exhibition is an integral part of the celebrations for the 2,500th anniversary of Neapolis. In such a special and stimulating year, Naples' cultural offerings are enriched with new influences. The Flagellation of Christ, already housed at the Museum, dialogues with Caravaggio's Ecce Homo: a unique journey through time and space, in the spirit of the rediscovery of Caravaggio's art and its influence on the Neapolitan scene, as evidenced by the work of Battistello Caracciolo. I can only renew the City of Naples' support for the Capodimonte Museum, one of the most interesting sites in the world." city and, over the years, promoter of initiatives of great importance and quality".

"The spirit of Napoli2500," emphasized Laura Valente, artistic director of Napoli2500, "is perfectly present in the very concept of this exhibition at Capodimonte. The story of 17th-century Neapolitan painting is enriched by a unique dialogue that continually reveals new pieces of its history. As a Fringe Festival, we will present performances here this fall dedicated to Caravaggio and his ideal connection with some contemporary geniuses. And as part of the collaboration with the Museum and Real Bosco, the result of Director Schmidt's enthusiastic support for the Neapolis anniversary celebrations, we will soon announce a powerful international contemporary art exhibition for the end-of-year program."

A rare and unique case among Caravaggio-era attributions in the last half-century, this medium-sized canvas has received almost unanimous critical acclaim. Ecce Homo was originally housed in the living room of a private home; in 2021, it was put up for sale with a starting price of €1,500 as a work from the "School of Ribera." The Spanish art house Ansorena then published a catalog of the work, and within days, word of mouth began to spread about the painting, bringing together leading experts on the painter, including art dealers and museum curators from around the world. As the painting increasingly consolidated its reputation as a lost Caravaggio original, the Spanish government declared it non-exportable, thus restricting its continued presence in Spain. In the summer of 2024, Ecce Homo, purchased by an anonymous British philanthropist living in Spain, was exhibited in a dedicated room at the Prado Museum in Madrid. A gripping story also told in the documentary thriller 'The Lost Caravaggio' released this year in Italian cinemas and recently broadcast on Sky Arte.

Roberto Longhi, in his seminal studies on the painter, had already published an image of a copy of the Madrid painting, being the first to glimpse, beyond the oxidized varnish and the banalism of a mediocre copyist, the full force of an authentic Caravaggesque idea yet to be traced. The study of the painting's history, however, is entirely due to Maria Cristina Terzaghi, who traced its passage from the Academia San Fernando in Madrid in the nineteenth century and proposed its identification with an Ecce Homo by Caravaggio that belonged to a viceroy of Naples—Garcia Avellaneda y Haro—in the mid-seventeenth century.

The Ecce Homo—one of the last episodes of Christ's life before the Crucifixion and after the Flagellation—is an iconography that was widely used throughout Italy between the 15th and 16th centuries. In the Madrid painting, Caravaggio places the figures in depth, suggesting a darkened loggia from which Pontius Pilate, the judge, leans forward, pointing out the grieving Christ to the crowd, while an open-mouthed executioner undresses him (or perhaps covers him after having stripped him) to further expose his tortured body. Caravaggio's ingenious and powerfully symbolic solution of depicting, above Christ's forehead, a small flame-like section of a bramble branch separated from the main trunk, lighter than the brown variations of the crown of thorns, is ingenious.

Since it was most likely painted in Naples, the Madrid canvas can most easily be compared to the paintings from the two Neapolitan periods. This evocative effect is further enhanced by the 1607 San Domenico Maggiore altarpiece and the Madrid room painting being re-enacted in the room alongside the masterpieces from the Capodimonte Museum. The painting's importance is evidenced by the repetition of certain poses in the 1607-1608 Stella altarpiece by Battistello Caracciolo (1578-1635), one of Caravaggio's most faithful followers who also had direct contact with the artist during his stays in Naples. On a side wall in the same room, it was decided to display a work by Battistello from the museum's storage: another horizontally formatted Ecce Homo. Capodimonte thus offers a unique opportunity for comparison, illustrating and documenting the Neapolitan success of the Caravaggio model. The stylistic proximity to some of Merisi's final works has allowed us to confirm that Battistello painted them during the years in which Caravaggio was in Naples or during the years between his stays.

And so the rediscovery of the Madrid Ecce Homo gives new meaning to the scholar's suggestion in the catalogue, which posed the question of whether Caravaggio himself might have "supervised" Battistello's work. It remains risky to say more, but experts and the general public will be able to once again see works from the Capodimonte permanent collection with fresh eyes, thanks to an extraordinary loan, an intermediate link in a chain that extends from the Flagellation of San Domenico Maggiore to Battistello's Ecce Homo and certainly beyond.