Days before it was set to go on sale during Sotheby’s Old Masters auction on February 5, a double-sided panel by the Italian Renaissance painter Antonello da Messina was withdrawn from the high-profile evening sale. Today, Sotheby’s revealed that the Italian Ministry of Culture purchased the painting for $14.9 million before it could reach the auction block.
Ecce Homo and Saint Jerome in the Desert (ca. 1430–79) had a $10 million–15 million estimate and was being promoted as the highlight of the auction. Ahead of the sale, Sotheby’s touted it as the only surviving painting by Antonello—out of a total of about 40 existing ones—in private hands.
Christopher Apostle, Sotheby’s international head of Old Masters, noted that Antonello “captures the humanity of Christ in this image—something only the greatest artists achieve.”
The painting depicts an anguished-looking Christ with a rope around his neck and a crown of thorns on one side, and St. Jerome kneeling in a desert landscape in front of an inkwell and book on the other. It was likely held, touched, and kissed by its original owner, who would have treated the tiny panel like a cherished devotional object.
Ecce Homo and Saint Jerome in the Desert has passed through many hands since it was painted in the mid-15th century. It resided in a Spanish private collection before being acquired by Wildenstein and Co. in 1967. After that, it was sold by the Italian art dealer Fabrizio Moretti to the owner who placed it with Sotheby’s.
Neither Sotheby’s nor the Italian Ministry of Culture stated which museum would eventually exhibit the painting.
