Antonello da Messina Pocket Painting

I’d been thinking about the idea of ditching the frame before this Roy/Rashid Johnson/Rubens situation came up a couple of weeks ago.

In the run-up to the Old Masters sale in February, Sotheby’s dropped this video of the incredibly named Christopher Apostle, SVP, International Head of Old Masters, with the star lot, a double-sided devotional painting by Antonello da Messina.

a sad millennial looking jesus in pain is painted shirtless head tilted, against a black background in a small devotional painting by da messina, here in a tasteful but rather thick gold frame, because it is double sided and small enough to fit in your pocket ig
Antonello da Messina, Ecce Homo; St Jerome, c 1463-65, oil on panel, 8 x 5 7/8 in., sold but not auctioned at Sothebys in February 2026

The tiny panel with Christ, Ecce Homo, on one side and St Jerome in Penitence on the other, is smaller than an iPad, and dates from 1463-65. Which would be several years after Antonello returned to Messina from Naples, where exposure to van Eyck and his circle brought oil paint to his attention. [Though this panel is made in tempera grassa, a transitional medium in which oil is added to egg-based tempera.]

screenshot of a video over the shoulder of a white bearded white guy in a dark suit cradling a frameless panel painting of jesus suffering, while he's trying to sell it at sotheby's
screenshot of Sotheby’s Christopher Apostle rawdogging Antonello da Messina’s Ecce Homo, via

Which is not the point right now, the point is Apostle is sitting in some church, rhapsodizing on the painting while spinning it naked, in his hands, and honestly.

The video ends with Apostle in full render unto Caesar mode, talking about how 500 years of devotion have imbued this panel with a spiritual charge:

“If Christ could speak in this painting, he’s saying, ‘I’m just like you. I am you.”
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Incredible stuff. Then just a few days later, after Italy intervened, and the painting had been withdrawn, it came back. Ben Luke asked Danh Vo his penultimate question, what one work of art would he live with? Vo replied:
“I’m not that type. I need to live with a lot of things. But you know, the Messina. Thank goodness the Italian state bought it, but recently the last privately held Messina painting was on auction. And, I tell you, I was calling all my galleries, ready to prostitute myself. And that was actually interesting, I would sell everything I have if I could live with that pocket painting, I thinking that would be enough. Did you see that the Jerome on the back was kissed so much that he disappeared!”
“Yes, what an amazing fact!”
“Oh, my God. So good. So good.”
“Wonderful.”
“A painting kissed away. You can’t get it better.”

screenshot of an over the shoulder shot of a white bearded white guy in a dark suit cradling a frameless wood panel painting by da messina, this is the back of the painting, which depicts a kneeling st jerome in the wilderness beating his chest with a rock. the detailed grotto-based landscape is apparently evocative of sicily, says the sotheby's guy trying to sell this incredible thing.
screenshot of Christopher Apostle and the faceless Messina St. Jerome, via Sotheby’s

“Pocket paintings” “A painting kissed away.”

As if I didn’t love a great verso painting before now. To live with art out of the frame is all I ask. And double sided. And in my pocket.

A Brush With…Danh Vo [theartnewspaper]
05 Feb 2026, Lot 18, Antonello da Messina, Ecce Homo; St Jerome [withdrawn][sothebys]