Christ Crowned with Thorns

For a long time this painting was known only from old Venetian guidebooks. It and its companion, a scourging of Christ, once hung over the two doors inside the church of the Terese, the barefoot Carmelites in Venice. In 1817, after Napoleon's administration had suppressed the convent, both lunettes were pulled out and sent to a holding deposit in the church of San Lorenzo, where they sat for well over a century. From there they went into the storerooms of the Doge's Palace, and somewhere along the way the painter's name was simply lost. Only when the pair resurfaced and was cleaned did scholars recognise the hand of Langetti again. The scene itself is crowded and cruel. A soldier kneels and mockingly offers Christ a reed for a scepter, another jams the ring of thorns down onto his head, and a turbaned figure at the side stands in for the high priest. The two canvases entered the Accademia in 2002.