Unpublished and largely unknown to scholars, this powerful painting of the Crowning with Thorns is likely to have been made in Rome during the second decade of the 1600s in the wake of the dramatic innovations of Caravaggio (1571–1610) by a northern artist whose identity remains elusive. Although in recent years much work has been done to define artistic personalities active in Rome in Caravaggio’s lifetime and beyond, the lives and careers of the many French, Dutch, German, Flemish and Spanish painters who flocked to the city still pose many questions.

The subject of the Crowning of Thorns was well suited to interpretation by Caravaggesque painters, whose preference for intense staging and dramatic lighting matched its harsh realism. Numerous examples of this episode from Christ’s Passion are known. The artists who seem to have responded most often to the theme, besides the Rome-based painter Bartolomeo Manfredi (1582–1622), were Utrecht painters Hendrick ter Brugghen (1588–1629), Gerrit van Honthorst (1592–1656) and Dirck van Baburen (1592/93–1624), as well as the Frenchman Valentin de Boulogne (1591–1632). Their compositions vary considerably, not least in the choreography of the figures; the changing emphasis on the crown of thorns (which here is forced down brutally onto Christ’s head with a stick); and the number of henchmen who encircle Him (in some cases as many as nine). Here the picture’s focus on only three figures heightens the drama. The centre of the composition is dominated by the tilting body of the seated Christ, thrust into the foreground, while two men press in close. The viewer is confronted not only with the mocking expression of one of Christ’s tormentors but, more poignantly, by the direct gaze of Christ himself.

There are two known treatments of this theme by Caravaggio, one of upright format at the Palazzo degli Alberti, Prato, datable to about 1602–3; the other in the celebrated Giustiniani collection in Rome, where it remained until the early nineteenth century (now Kunsthistorisches Museum, Vienna; fig. 1). The latter is recorded in the posthumous inventory dated 1638 of the Marchese Vincenzo Giustiniani (1564–1637), in whose palace it hung as an overdoor; it probably entered the collection soon after it was painted in about 1602–4. A staunch supporter and patron of Caravaggio, Giustiniani amassed a rich collection of contemporary art, which featured paintings by Northern European Caravaggesque painters, including ter Brugghen, Honthorst, Baburen and David de Haen (Amsterdam c. 1585–1622 Rome).¹ These artists would have had first-hand knowledge of Caravaggio’s painting.

Recognizing the power and quality of the present work, Gianni Papi and Keith Christiansen consider it to be by a northern painter. Papi, who has devoted extensive study to this material, has not yet identified the hand and while he agrees it is the work of a northerner in Rome (not Naples) around 1615–20, he does not ultimately see it as the work of either De Haen (see for example his lunette of the Mocking of Christ in San Pietro in Montorio, Rome), or Baburen, both of whom have been suggested. Keith Christiansen sees affinities with the Maestro dei giocatori group, a cluster assembled by Papi as the body of work of an artist whose nationality is still uncertain, accepting however that this Crowning of Thorns is more sophisticated than most of the works by this anonymous master.² Prof. Richard Spear also agrees that this painting is northern;³ and Wayne Franits too thinks it is likely to be by a northern artist.⁴ Both rejected the suggestion that its author is De Haen. We are most grateful to all those consulted for their opinions.

¹ De Haen was Baburen’s friend and collaborator in Rome; see C. Grilli, ‘David de Haen, pittore olandese a Roma’, in Paragone, 48, 1997, vol. 11, pp. 33–50; also G. Papi, ‘Nuove attribuzioni per David de Haen’, in Entro l’aria bruna d’una camera rinchiusa. Scritti su Caravaggio e l’ambiente caravaggesco, Rome 2016, pp. 131–45; and G. Papi, ‘La Vocazione di San Matteo di David de Haen’, in Un misto di grano e di pula. Scritti su Caravaggio e l’ambiente caravaggesco, Rome and Naples 2020, pp. 108–15.
² For the Maestro dei giocatori see Papi in La “schola” del Caravaggio. Dipinti dalla Collezione Koelliker, exh. cat., Milan 2006, pp. 262–69; see also G. Papi, Il genio degli anonimi. Maestri caravaggeschi a Roma e a Napoli, exh. cat., Milan 2005, pp. 33–49. Christiansen also pointed out analogies with Maino, especially in the coloration of the flesh, and wondered whether the artist might be Spanish, c. 1615. Email correspondence, 7 and 9 April 2022.
³ Email correspondence, 14 March 2022.
⁴ Email correspondence, 14 March 2022.