Ecce Homo

Titian was past 70 in 1560, running a Venetian workshop that sent devotional paintings all over Europe, half-length figures of Christ made to be looked at close up in a private room rather than from the back of a church. This is one of those. Two centuries later it was bought by Samuel von Brukenthal, a Transylvanian Saxon who became governor of Transylvania under Maria Theresa and filled his palace in Sibiu with pictures. He left the collection to a Lutheran school in the town, which opened it to the public in 1817. In 1968 thieves took eight paintings off the gallery walls, this one among them, and the file was closed four years later with no suspect named. It was found in the United States and came home in 1998.