Overview
- The small oil on panel will go on view at the Papal Palace in Castel Gandolfo in the show El Greco in the Mirror: Two Paintings Face to Face.
- 'Redentor' will be presented alongside a circa‑1570 tempera of Saint Francis from the A. and M. A. Pagliara Foundation at the University Suor Orsola Benincasa.
- The panel came from the collection of José Sánchez de Muniáin, was donated to Pope Paul VI in 1967, and was kept in the papal apartment of the Apostolic Palace.
- Vatican restorers report that a forger in the late 1960s repainted the image of Christ, concealing the original layers for decades.
- The restoration led by Paolo Violini with Alessandra Zarelli and scientific analyses by Fabio Morresi revealed a pictorial palimpsest with two underlying strata and supports the Vatican’s attribution to El Greco, in an exhibition curated by Fabrizio Biferali and presented as an homage to Pope León XIV tied to the St. Francis centenary.