While the Apocalypse – Blog
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By Eva Baron on February 6, 2025
In his painting Christ Shown to the People (or Ecce Homo), Titian conjures a brutal scene. Beneath the eerie glow of a torchlight, Pontius Pilate, the Roman ruler of Judea, presents Jesus to the unseen crowd who will decide his fate. Researchers in Cyprus, however, have recently discovered the Titian painting is more than simply a religious narrative: it’s also a puzzle, bearing a portrait hidden beneath layers of paint.
The Andreas Pittas Art Characterization Laboratories (APAC) at the Cyprus Institute was originally tasked with analyzing Ecce Homo’s materiality and state of preservation. While examining the painting under a microscope, the team noticed something unusual. Through cracks in the painting’s surface, different colored pigments peeked out.
“Microscopic observations of the craqueleure of the painting allowed us to … detect, through the cracks, the existence of different pigments under the Ecce Homo composition,” Nikolas Bakirtzis, APAC’s director, tells Artnet. “It was like uncovering a puzzle.”
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