Ecce Homo (Rubens)

Ecce Homo or Christ Wearing the Crown of Thorns is a c.1612 oil on oak panel painting of the ecce homo subject by Peter Paul Rubens, now in the Hermitage Museum.[1] The Hermitage also houses an oil study for its figure of Pilate.[2]

Originally commissioned by cardinal Massimego, Christ's pose was influenced by the statue of a centaur in the Borghese Gallery in Rome and the work may even have been produced as a pendant to the 1616-1617 Drunken Silenus (Alte Pinakothek). H. Evers argues it was produced during the artist's stay in Genoa,[3] whilst Keizer argues it was from Rubens' later period in Antwerp. By the end of the 18th century it was in Prince Bezborodko's collection in Saint Petersburg.[4] It passed by inheritance to his relatives-in-law, the Counts Kushelev; on his death in 1862, Count Nikolai Kushelev-Bezborodko bequested the collection to the Academy of Arts.