The 44″-by-34″ depiction of Christ with the crown of thorns was thought to be by José de Ribera, a minor 17th-century Spanish artist, and had been slated for auction in Madrid with an expected value of about €1,500. Then curators at the Prado declared that there’s “sufficient stylistic and documentary evidence” to believe it might be Caravaggio’s work, and the Spanish government promptly put an export ban on it. – Artnet
