This devotional image depicts Jesus naked above the waist displaying the wounds of his Passion on his hands and side and wearing the crown of thorns on his head. Such representations of Jesus are sometimes equated to the “Man of Sorrows” from the passage in Isaiah 53:3-6:

He is despised and rejected of men, a man of sorrows, and acquainted with grief. And we hid as it were our faces from Him; He was despised, and we esteemed Him not. Surely He hath borne our griefs and carried our sorrows; yet we did esteem Him stricken, smitten of God, and afflicted. But He was wounded for our transgressions; He was bruised for our iniquities. The chastisement of our peace was upon Him, and with his stripes we are healed. All we like sheep have gone astray; we have turned everyone to His own way; and the Lord hath laid on Him the iniquity of us all.

As a frontal devotional image devoid of narrative, however, this representation of Jesus is also known as “Ecce Homo” (behold the man), after the Latin words spoken by Pontius Pilate in the Vulgate translation of John 19:5 when Pontius Pilate presented a scourged Jesus, bound and crowned with thorns, to the hostile Jews demanding his crucifixion. In the “Ecce Homo,” the lone figure of a suffering Christ appears to be staring directly at the observer, enabling him or her to personally identify with the events of the Passion. This iconography arose in the late medieval period and gained in popularity in the early Renaissance period along with the “Man of Sorrows.” In the Dumbarton Oaks painting, Jesus is painted in browns against a black background. Presented full-face to just below his chest, he wears a crown of thorns and has a cord looped around his neck that ends hanging over his left shoulder. Above his head is a cruciform halo. His hair falls over his shoulders, and his left hand rests on his chest with his last three pressed fingers tightly together and his thumb and forefinger held widely apart. Stigmata appear on his hand and below his right breast. A fly is also seen on his breast just above the opening between his forefinger and middle finger. In the background to the viewer’s left are the initials IC XC, one above other, a traditional Christogram abbreviation of the Greek words for “Jesus Christ” (i.e., the first and last letters of each of the words “IHCOYC XPICTOC” when written in Latin script). An unusual feature is the tied hanging branch of fruit and leaves.

On the back of the panel is an old inscription: FRANCISCVS GENTI[LIS] [D]A FABRIANO PINSIT, which Bernard Berenson believed was the autograph signature of the painter Francesco di Gentile da Fabriano (see Bibliography). Little is known about this artist, who most likely worked in the second half of the fifteenth century. His name suggests that he was the son and, therefore, possibly the student of the artist Gentile da Fabriano (ca. 1385-1427), although there is no documentary evidence for this. His signed works show that he was influenced by Paduan artists and that he typically painted faces with soft, albeit expressive features that have characteristic deep, almond-shaped eyes and elongated noses. In a manner reminiscent of Flemish painting, his paintings display an attention to detail, and he often employed vegetable motifs, including flowers and fruit, as in the Dumbarton Oaks painting.

This painting has suffered paint loss and abrasion throughout, and several restorations--notably the left eye--are evident. When the painting was cleaned and conserved by David Rosen of the Walters Art Gallery in 1939, most of the overpainted restorations were removed.

A related painting attributed to Francesco di Gentile da Fabriano is the bust image of the martyred Saint Sebastian, oil on wood, in the Musée des Beaux-Arts, Lille.

J. Carder

Berenson, Bernard. Catalogue of a Collection of Paintings and Some Art Objects. Italian Paintings. Vol. 1. Philadelphia, 1913, p. 75 and 78.

Pierce, Catharine W. "Francesco di Gentile da Fabriano." American Journal of Archaeology. Vol. 25, No. 4 (Oct.-Dec., 1921), p. 377.

Berenson, Bernard. Italian Pictures of the Renaissance. Philadelphia, 1932, p. 201.

Serra, Luigi. L'Arte nelle Marche. Vol. 2. Rome, 1934, p. 249, fig. 314.

Van Marle, Raimond. The Development of the Italian Schools of Painting. Vol. 15. The Hague, 1934, p. 75.

Fogg Art Museum, Cambridge, Massachusetts, "An Exhibition of Italian Paintings and Drawings," March 24, 1939 to April 15, 1939; no. 16

Collection of Lisa de Wolfe (née Colt) Rotch Curtis [1871–1933] and Ralph Wormeley Curtis [1854-1922], Saint-Jean Cap Ferrat, France, who bought the painting in Venice, 1900.

By descent to Ralph Wormeley Curtis, Jr. [1908–1973], Paris, until May 1935;

Dimitri de Gourko (dealer), Paris;

Purchased from Dimitri de Gourko, Paris, by Mildred Barnes and Robert Woods Bliss, February 13, 1936;

Collection of Mildred Barnes and Robert Woods Bliss, Washington, D.C. until November 1940;

Transfered to Harvard University;

Dumbarton Oaks Research Library and Collection, House Collection, Washington, D.C.