This arresting Ecce Homo represents a significant addition to the oeuvre of Ludovico Carracci, a pivotal figure in Western art and founder in the 1580s of the celebrated Clementina Academy in Bologna where, together with his younger cousins Agostino and Annibale, he fostered a new, deeply naturalistic approach to painting, reforming the artificiality of the late-mannerist style and paving the way for baroque.

This intensely dramatic canvas – painted with a subdued earthy palette, but unlined and well preserved – is particularly representative of Ludovico’s highly personal style, blending naturalism and spirituality, daring anatomical foreshortenings and a counter-reformed, almost expressionistic religious pathos.

Previously unknown to scholars, and only recently published by Alessandro Brogi, the painting is a relevant rediscovery as this iconic composition, already considered by scholars a Ludovico’s invention, was until now known only through copies, one of which is in the Albani collection in Rome.