After Bartolomé Estaban Murillo; 18th century.

After BARTOLOMÉ ESTABAN MURILLO; XVIII century.
"Ecce homo".
Oil on cardboard.
Measurements: 30 x 21 cm; 41 x 31,5 cm (frame).
Stylistically the work follows the models imposed by the master Murillo, who laid the aesthetic foundations of a specific model attached to this iconography. The figure is worked from a naturalistic perspective, using a tenebrist illumination. The face, in the foreground, is cut against a background of dense darkness and is directly illuminated by a theatrical and directed spotlight, which enters the image from the upper left corner leaving half of the face in a nuanced half-light.
The theme of Ecce Homo belongs to the cycle of the Passion, and precedes the episode of the Crucifixion. Following this iconography, Jesus is presented at the moment when the soldiers mock him, after crowning him with thorns, dressing him in a purple tunic (here red, symbolic color of the Passion) and placing a reed in his hand, kneeling and exclaiming "Hail, King of the Jews!". The words "Ecce Homo" are those pronounced by Pilate when presenting Christ before the crowd; their translation is "behold the man", a phrase by which he mocks Jesus and implies that Christ's power was not such as that of the rulers who were judging him there.