learn more

"Ecco Homo"

The scene is taken from the Gospel of John, 19:5. Pontius Pilate displays Christ to the crowd with the words, "Ecce homo!" ("Behold the man").[6] Caravaggio's version of the scene combined Pilate's display with the earlier moment of Christ, already crowned with thorns, mockingly robed like a king by his tormentors.  Caravaggio has dropped the convention of showing Christ's torturer as a grotesque, and has shown Pilate dressed as a 17th-century official.