Caravaggio's Work Turns Out to Be a Fake!

An art dealer sold a painting for $300,000, claiming it was the first Caravaggio work ever discovered and that no one had ever seen it before. Later, when the painting was examined, it was revealed that it was not actually Caravaggio's painting, and an investigation was opened for fraud.

Experts from the Prado Museum in Madrid announced that the work of art titled “Ecce Homo with Two Executioners” is not real and its value would be at most 24 thousand dollars.

The fraudulent art dealer is said to have collaborated with Sara Muñoz, who works at the Uffizi Gallery in Florence and poses as a fake Caravaggio expert.

Who is Caravaggio?

Caravaggio's perception of reality, earthly sensuality, restored the realism of the early Renaissance to painting and later developed it further.

Born on September 29, 1571, Caravaggio lived and worked in Rome.

In 1591, a young painter from Northern Italy arrived in Rome. This artist was Michelangelo Merisi, who took the name Caravaggio from his birthplace and who brought about radical changes in art in Europe. Caravaggio's perception of reality, earthly sensuality, brought the realism of the early Renaissance back to painting and later developed it further.

Caravaggio refused to bow to the dictates of the Counter-Reformation wherever possible. Many of his works were rejected because of the excessive realism of his portraits and the depiction of ordinary working people. He used real-life figures for his religious figures and famous Roman prostitutes as models for his Madonnas. One well-known prostitute, Anna Bianchini, is said to have drowned in the Tiber in 1604, although she was probably murdered. According to legend, when Caravaggio was commissioned to paint the Death of the Virgin, he used Anna's bloated body as a model for the dead Virgin.

Source: Milliyet