Ecce Homo

The oil sketch in portrait format shows the moment in the Passion story when the Roman governor Pontius Pilate presents the tortured Jesus of Nazareth to the people, as he sees no reason to condemn him. The Jewish leadership, however, demands Jesus’ crucifixion (John 19:4-6). Pontius Pilate is shown standing at the top of a staircase in a bright red robe. He grasps the maltreated Jesus by the arm, surrounded by soldiers and several angry men with raised arms in the foreground. Jesus’ pose is bent backwards slightly, a scarf around his waist, his hands folded in his lap. What we see here is a ‘modello’, a draft for a painting, which is intended to give an initial impression of the composition and choice of colours. In commissions for the rendering of biblical themes, ‘modelli’ were often required to assess to what extent the message could be understood and whether the depiction was appropriate. The present draft may be a study for an altarpiece that has since been lost. This oil sketch is one of the rare secured works by the master Peter Paul Rubens and can be traced back to Antwerp in the 1640s.