Italian school; last quarter of the 16th century. "Ecce homo", Oil on copper. It has slight restorations. It has an 18th century frame with damages. Measurements: 29 x 24 cm; 31 x 31 cm (frame). Due to its technique, this beautiful painting fits faithfully to the canons of the advanced mannerism, where the intellectual concepts and the artistic virtuosity were emphasized, based on "la maniera" of the three Italian masters par excellence: Leonardo, Raphael and Michelangelo. Thus, in this beautiful Ecce Homo we can perfectly observe the delicacy of the sfumato that manages to subtly blur the contours, the artificial use of light, the expressive languor... In short, features in which the artist has opted for "imitating" the art of the previous generation rather than for a rigorous search for naturalism. Experts such as Freedberg affirmed that Mannerism was a cultured artistic movement, with great intellectual content, as the artist expected his public to realise what his artistic references were. It is therefore a highly refined style of painting, intended exclusively for courtly and intellectual circles. As we can see in this work, Mannerism combines an exaggerated elegance with exquisite attention to textures and details in general: special mention should be made of the artist s delicacy in depicting the hair of the beard, the glazing of the eyes, the porcelain character of the skin, the velvet of the cloak, and so forth. Another very modern aspect of this painting is the point of view, which brings the viewer into a very close-up view of Christ s expressive face, leaving hardly any "air" around him, which, in a compositional display by the artist, emphasises the great emotional content of the work. We see the same device in works by leading Mannerist masters such as Alessandro Allori s "Susanna and the Old Men" (1535 - 1607), which brings the viewer so close to the subjects that one can almost feel like a third old man leering at the scene. In addition to the aforementioned Allori, other artists such as Agnolo Bronzino, Giorgio Vasari and Federico Barrocci exemplify this advanced mannerism which lasted from around 1530 to 1580. The virtuoso painter of this "Ecce Homo" undoubtedly observed the work of these artists, as their influence is evident in his refined technique. The subject is inevitably linked to the context of the Counter-Reformation, in which the threat of the advance of Protestantism. At the end of the 16th - beginning of the 17th century, the secular, mythological and allegorical themes of the early Renaissance were being redirected towards a more rigorous religiosity.