Lot Essay
This Ecce Homo was included by Professor Spinosa as a fully autograph work in his 2003 monograph on the oeuvre of Ribera, revised in 2006, an opinion reconfirmed after viewing the original picture in 2008. Described in the latter publication as a painting 'di altissima qualità pittorica', Spinosa dates it to circa 1637-1639, the same moment as the artist's comparable Ecce Homo, that is signed and dated 1638 (Greenville, South Carolina, Bob Jones University), and at around the same time as the variant of the latter with Christ in a reverse pose, that Spinosa considers also to be a picture of the mid-1630s (Rome, Malgeri collection; op. cit., p. 343, no. 232, and p. 318, no. A156 respectively).