Ecce Homo

The X-ray of this canvas shows a portrait underneath, painted over and reused, and it shows a first idea for the scene that was clearer than the one that survives. There were two figures only, Christ and a tormentor seen in profile, set along a diagonal lit by a round window, and they were looking at each other. In the finished picture the window has a grille, the tormentor has turned his back, the reed has swapped sides, and the exchange of looks is gone. The Prado, which dates the painting between 1565 and 1570, is blunt about the result. The canvas is uneven, several hands worked on it, and the museum lists the author as attributed to Titian rather than Titian. The figure of Christ is the part that holds up, modelled with a care the rest of the picture does not have.