(Naples 1696-1782)
Ecce Homo,
oil on canvas, 76.4 x 102.5 cm, framed 

Provenance:
Private European collection

We are grateful to Nicola Spinosa for suggesting the attribution of the present painting after examination in the original.

The present work is a bozzetto for the larger painting of Ecce homo, which is conserved in the basilica of Santa Maria dell’Assunta at Castel di Sangro (Abruzzo) and is a pendant to the Christ carrying the Cross with St. Veronica in the same church. The two works were commissioned to Francesco De Mura between about 1725-1727 for the consecration of the church of the Collegiata dell’Assunta.

Two other versions of the present bozzetto are known: one
(62.2 x 74.9 cm) is in the Bob Jones University collection in Greenville, South Carolina, and another one (62.2 x 79.1 cm) is also in Greenville, in the Bob and Teresa Wilson collection (see
A. R. Blumenthal et al., In the light of Naples. The art of Francesco De Mura, exhibition catalogue, London 2016, pp. 81-85). Francesco De Mura also painted abozzetto for the pendant composition with Christ carrying the Cross with St. Veronica, conserved in the Molinari Pradelli collection, Castenaso, Bologna.