Old Master & 19th - 21th Century Paintings

To debate about painting.

 

The Sleeper. The Lost Caravaggio

For decades, the Pérez de Castro family lived unknowingly with a masterpiece in their living room: a painting by Caravaggio that was thought to be lost and whose value could exceed 300 million euros.
His appearance in the catalogue of an auction for just 1,500 euros sparks a frenetic international race in which experts, collectors and dealers play a million-dollar game to win the sleeper that has revolutionized the world of ancient art.

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I started this thread to share some dazzling stories. This painting is part of it. The family sold it to a millionaire who is obliged to leave it at the Prado Museum in Madrid. It wasn't sold for 300 million euros, but much less.

 

Hanging in Madrid, in the living room of the Pérez de Castro family — descendants of one of the editors of the Cadiz Constitution — who ignored the jewel in his hands, Caravaggio's Ecce Homo is an example of what the art market calls sleeper: a painting forgotten or misattributed until experts rediscover it as the masterpiece it is.

The work that stars the documentary, structured like a thriller, has been one of the greatest discoveries in the history of art in the last half century, revolutionizing the market and initiating a process that involved experts, historians and — institutions including the Government of Spain — to ensure its authentication, protection and guarantee its place in the history of painting.

Through trips and interviews, the team of this feature film, which unfolds in the chiaroscuro that characterize the art of Caravaggio, has witnessed an exception of the return to the light of one of the most media and relevant works of the moment, following, from within and over three years, the restoration, attribution and sale of a piece that, inexplicably, He had remained in the shadows.

Shot to the rhythm of thrillers in Spain, Italy, the UK and Monaco, The Sleeper. The Lost Caravaggio counts on the participation of numerous experts, including Professor Maria Cristina Terzaghi, from the University of Rome, who was one of the first people to realize the real dimension of the painting and who was part of the team that authenticated it.
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