(Bologna 1575–1642)
Ecce Homo,
oil on canvas, 80 x 64.5 cm, framed

Provenance:
possibly Gonzaga-Nevers collection;
art market, France;
where acquired by the present owner

We are grateful to Massimo Pulini for endorsing the attribution on the basis of a photograph and for his help in cataloguing. His written report accompanies this lot.

The cold pallor of this effigy of Christ, and the cool marble tone of the figure, which is illuminated by a pearlescent glow, could be said to be better suited to the Gospel account of the Resurrection. The emotionally harrowing scene of the crowning with thorns and the display of the Ecce Homo to the Hebrew people is usually represented with stronger flesh tones. In the present work however, Guido Reni instead transforms the episode into an act of sorrowful devotion. The usual canonical red of Christ’s robes, which signals his imperial investiture as King of the Jews, is rejected by the artist who instead uses an attenuated and refined amethyst-like colour.

The background, beyond the figure, silhouettes the crown of thorns in a form of infernal incandescence. It is precisely in this tonal contrast between the fore and background of the painting, that the originality of this fine rendering of this subject is focused, an iconographic device created entirely by Reni.

In his monograph of 1988, Stephen Pepper specifically addressed the iconography of this type of Ecce Homo, characterised by a cane held diagonally. In his catalogue entry on the version of the painting conserved in the Gemäldegalerie, Dresden (oil on copper, 76 x 60 cm, inv. no. 330, see S. Pepper, Guido Reni, L’opera completa, Novara 1988, p. 284, no. 153, fig. 143). Pepper confirmed that there was more than one autograph version of the composition, and in a note he mentioned the same subject on canvas (72 x 55 cm, not illustrated) in the Swedish Wachtmeister collection, which has been brought to his attention by Pierre Rosenberg. Other versions of the same composition were reproduced in the artist’s studio and during this period of production the definition between fully autograph versions, as well as versions produced by the artist in collaboration with the workshop can be confused. Neverthess the copies and variants of this composition that are known, illustrate the various painterly styles of Reni’s collaborators during the period in which the studio was managed by Giovanni Andrea Siriani. However, both the Dresden painting and the present canvas are clearly different from the academic style of Giovanni Andrea Sirani.

The pose and characterisation of the features in the present composition are executed with unhesitating surehandedness: even the upper row of Christ’s teeth can be perceived in the clear, transparent shadows; under the cold pallor of the flesh, blue veins can be made out under his right cheek while the other is a deeper shade of rose. According to Pulini, this skilled layering of colour, reminiscent of alabaster, confirms Reni’s authorship of the present work which he dates to around the mid-1630s – a date towards the end of the artist’s career and a strikingly inventive and poetic period of work from the celebrated Bolognese painter.

Malvasia described Guido Reni’s works in his book of 1678, Felsina Pittrice, as follows: ‘Affaticavasi anche, non mai saziandosi, nell’ultime sue pitture, mostrandocele sempre più erudite e con nuovi ricerchi e mille galanterie: con certi lividetti et azurrini mescolati fra le mezze tinte e fra le carnagioni […] quali si osservano nelle carni delicate che rendono un certo diafano […]. E questa è quella che chiamano seconda maniera di Guido che come perciò incognita anche, e forestiera, non giungerà che col tempo ad addimesticarsi, a farsi ben conoscere e finalmente ad assodarsi nella comune affezione e concetto. Strillino pure a lor voglia i malevoli, che si conosceranno un giorno queste finezze per inimitabili, ed io già ne pronostico sicuro il successo’ [‘He also strained, never sating, in his final works, revealing them to be ever more erudite, with new discoveries and a thousand refinements: with certain livid mauves and azures melded into the flesh tones […] that can be seen in the delicate skin surfaces rendered almost diaphanous […] And this is what we call Guido’s second manner, which being as yet unknown is strange, it will not but with time become familiar, easily recognised and finally embraced as a concept with general affection. Let the ill-wishers shout as they please, but one day these refinements will be recognised as inimitable, and I already prognosticate their assured success’] (C. C. Malvasia, Felsina Pittrice, 1678, II, p. 58).