Double masterpiece by Antonello da Messina at auction in New York

With a catalog of just around forty surviving works, almost all preserved in museums, opportunities to acquire a painting by Antonello da Messina are extremely rare. This is only the second work of this magnitude to come to auction in an entire generation; the previous one is today in the Louvre collection.

On the front of the painting, Antonello represents the moment described in the Gospel of John in which Pontius Pilate shows Christ to the crowd after torture, with the writing “Behold the man”. The face of Christ, marked by suffering and crowned with thorns, is not idealized: the naked torso contorts, revealing youth and vulnerability, and the direct gaze emotionally involves the observer. The scene also shows the influence of Flemish painting, but with a unique expressive intensity.

On the reverse, Saint Jerome is portrayed kneeling in front of an open book and an inkwell, symbol of his translation of the Bible into Latin. The surrounding landscape, delicately illuminated, reveals an extraordinary capacity for miniaturization and realism. Some abrasion marks suggest that the painting was an object of active devotion, perhaps even carried close to the body by the owner.

The work anticipates the style of Giovanni Bellini, who was profoundly influenced by Antonello’s stay in Venice. Similar compositions are found in Bellini’s works such as Saint Jerome Reading in a Landscape (National Gallery in London) and Saint Francis in the Desert (Frick Collection).

“Antonello is an almost legendary artist, and his paintings are exceptionally rare. The appearance of a work like this represents an extraordinary event for the market. In Ecce Homo we find a wonderful subtlety: not an idealized portrait, but a real person, young, vulnerable and deeply human,” said Christopher Apostle, international head of the Old Masters division at Sotheby’s. Born in Sicily, trained in Naples and then active in Venice, Antonello da Messina played a fundamental role in introducing the innovations of Flemish painting to Southern Italy, contributing to a pioneering use of the oil technique, which allowed him to obtain extraordinary nuances of tone and color. (by Paolo Martini)