Christ Presented to the People (Ecce Homo)

The Picture: Christ, shown bust length, his arms bound at the wrists and crossed over his chest, his body bearing the marks of his flagellation, with tears coursing down his bloodstained face, is displayed to the viewer by the turbaned figure of Pilate—the fifth prefect of the Roman province of Judaea who served under Emperor Tiberius from 26/27 A.D. to 36/37 A.D. Pilate’s hands are provocatively placed on Christ’s shoulder, his right index finger raised, his gaze directed at the viewer as he utters the words “Ecce Homo,” in conformity with the biblical text in the gospel of John 19:5: “Then came Jesus forth, wearing the crown of thorns and the purple robe. And Pilate saith unto them, Behold the man!” Opposite Pilate is a black African, shown shouting insults at Christ. Behind this group are the dimly lit faces of further figures who look on. The picture is on canvas, which Sodoma used only occasionally and which may, therefore, indicate a special function for the piece.

The Costumes: The non-Roman and vaguely orientalizing costume of Pilate was possibly intended to give this biblical story a topical resonance, given the threat felt throughout Europe in the early sixteenth century by the advancing Ottoman empire. The presence of a black African as a part of Pilate’s court might also suggest Christ suffering at the hands of infidels, for the Muslim market for enslaved black Africans preceded that in Europe by centuries. It is worth recalling that in the early fourteenth century, Giotto included two black African attendants in his fresco in the church of Santa Croce, Florence, showing Saint Francis before the sultan of Egypt, Malek al-Kamil (see fig. 1 above), and in his scene of the Flagellation in the Arena Chapel in Padua (ca. 1305), he included a black African as one of the tormentors of Christ (fig. 2). (European artists often showed black Africans as executioners in Passion and martyrdom scenes even though there is little evidence that they actually had that role in Christian Europe.) In Giotto's Paduan fresco Pilate is shown in a toga with a wreath on his head, and this surely underscores Sodoma's decision to transform Pilate from a Roman into a non-Western ruler.

The black African wears a highly specific feathered hat or beret and a cape that may designate his particular status. The Met’s picture is not unusual in including a black African or in showing Pilate in orientalizing dress. Among others is a more or less contemporary Netherlandish altarpiece—a folding triptych—ascribed to the Master of the Holy Blood (Museo del Prado, Madrid) that has as its subject Christ presented to the people. It has both a black African behind Christ and, in one of the folding wings, an open-mouth black African wearing a red cape and hat not dissimilar to the costume found in The Met’s picture. Later in date is an engraving by Raphael Sadeler recording a painting by Jacopo Ligozzi (fig. 3). A number of scholars have noted that the presence of black Africans in scenes such as these is a reminder of “a centuries-old European habit of associating black Africans with executioners.”[1]

The Date: The history of the picture is unknown prior to the mid-nineteenth century and it has not yet entered the literature on the artist. It would seem to date from the last decade of Sodoma’s activity. A comparison with an earlier composition showing Christ among his Tormenters (Galleria degli Uffizi, Florence—generally dated to about 1525) underscores the distinguishing character of The Met’s picture. In the Uffizi painting, Christ is shown seated at a diagonal, surrounded by soldiers. There is a similar, Leonardesque contrast of expression between the soldier in armor who presents Christ and a shouting figure opposite who torments him. What distinguishes The Met’s picture from this more narrative composition is the combination of Christ’s frontal pose and the quality of closeness to the viewer and the effect of intimacy achieved by showing him only bust length. In his pose and his proximity and in the way his suffering is indicated to the viewer by Pilate, he becomes an object for contemplation and meditation: the biblical “man of sorrows and acquainted with grief” (Isaiah 53:3).

Keith Christiansen 2019

[1] Paul H. D. Kaplan, “Isabella d’Este and Black African Women,” in Black Africans in Renaissance Europe, ed. T. F. Earle and K. J. P. Lowe, Cambridge, 2005 (2010 ed.), p. 132. Among later paintings of the theme including a black African, one of the most memorable and affecting is Van Dyck’s painting in the Barber Institute of Fine Arts in Birmingham (UK), in which a black African holds up a cape behind the figure of Christ. The picture was painted in Genoa for the Balbi family during Van Dyck’s stay in Italy (1621–27). Perhaps not coincidentally, as a port city, Genoa had a notable population of enslaved black Africans.

[Giovanni Battista Camuccini, Palazzo Cesi, Rome, by about 1851–53; ms. cat., about 1851, room 3, no. 6, as "Gesù presentato al Popolo," by Gio. Paolo Lomazzo; sold to Northumberland]; Algernon Percy, 4th Duke of Northumberland, Northumberland House, London, later Alnwick Castle (1853–d. 1865); the Dukes of Northumberland, Northumberland House, later Alnwick Castle (1865–1940); Hugh Algernon Percy, 10th Duke of Northumberland, Alnwick Castle (1940–69; sold through Agnew to Lunde); Asbjorn R. Lunde, New York, later Riverdale, N.Y. (1969–96)

Tito Barberi. Catalogo ragionato della Galleria Camuccini in Roma. [ca. 1851], room 3, picture no. 6 [manuscript copies in the archive of the Camuccini heirs at Cantalupo and in the Alnwick Castle Archives], as "Gesù presentato al Popolo," by Gio. Paolo Lomazzo.

Keith Christiansen in "Recent Acquisitions, A Selection: 1996–1997." Metropolitan Museum of Art Bulletin 55 (Fall 1997), p. 27, ill. (color), attributes it to Sodoma and dates it to the last decade of his career.

The frame is from Siena and dates to about 1540 (see figs. 4–7 above). A cassetta type frame made of poplar, it is water gilded overall and retains its lap joins in the frieze on the upper left and lower right corners. The sight edge molding is ornamented with a row of carved pearls flanked by an ogee on the inside and a stepped cavetto on the other side. Carved cauliculi arabesques scroll along the frieze interrupted on each of four sides only by an irregularly placed mascaron. These masks would have served as a center point of the carving design before the frame was reduced in size, evident now in the strong mitre cuts visible at the lower left and upper right. A small hollow rises to the half round top edge which slopes back in a hollow to the straight side. The present gilding may have been applied in the nineteenth century.

Timothy Newbery with Cynthia Moyer 2017; further information on this frame can be found in the Department of European Paintings files