This documentary tells, from within, the bizarre of the sleeping caravaggio

PresentBy Diana drag

DFor 60 years, an incalculable value picture He was hung on the dining room wall from the Pérez de Castro family, in an apartment in the Salamanca neighborhood in Madrid. Mercedes tells that her husband – painter and professor of Fine Arts – asked on many occasions about the attribution of the work and that the answers always concluded that he belonged to the circle of José de Ribera. So, when Mercedes decided to move to a more limited house on Paredes, he decided to wrap the work on bubble paper and send it to the Madrid auction house. It was his niece who encouraged him to do it.

“Circle of José de Ribera (S. XVII). The coronation of thorns. Oil on canvas. Measures: 111 x 86 cm. Departure: € 1,500. ”With this description he collected the catalog of the auction house, published on the Internet, that painting. It was then that the art world detected that it could be a work of Caravaggio that He believed himself lost and whose value could exceed 300 million euros. Also when a frantic international career was unleashed in which experts, collectors and marching played a millionaire game for taking the sleeper (Sleeping work). This is called a forgotten or poorly attributed painting, which goes unnoticed until experts rediscover it as an invaluable piece.

The film director and producer Álvaro Longoria and his team had the privilege of attending, as witnesses of exception, in return to the light of the most media and relevant work of the moment. For three years the restoration, attribution and sale of a picture that until then had remained in the shadows followed from within. Now, the documentary The Sleeper. The lost caravaggiothat reaches the cinema rooms next May 13collect this process.

“I have always caught my attention and I wanted to investigate the issue of prices fluctuations in the art world: why a painter becomes fashionable, why suddenly something is worth a lot and then goes to be worth very little. I talked to Jorge Coll (art deer and director of Colnaghi, the oldest art gallery in the world), to do something on this subject, but I did not finish finding well the angle. Rumor about a painting that had appeared, I talked to Jorge and told me “we are actively, trying to keep this painting and there is a real possibility.” I would like to record the whole process“,” Says Longoria. And he did so.

From within

Jorge Coll, one of the first marches to be interested in the work and who will finally direct his authentication and sale process, gave the director the necessary confidence to embark on filming. “I think that is the great value of the documentary, to be able to follow the hand -to -hand process with those who are taking it. That also allowed the family, which I already knew for other things, trust me and that I was not going to reveal anything at that time because my goal was to tell everything when it had happened. All the world’s journalists were trying to have this information and access the family and get interviews, but they did not want to open up to anyone,”

In the documentary there are tension, intrigue and suspense. And, as in the best of the Thrillers, the documentary is full of Unexpected twists. “The art world is very fascinating, but, in the end, what is interesting are the intrigues. With that idea I had to rule out many things to stay only in the adventure of the painting: in access, in decisions, in those turns … we never knew what was going to happen … suddenly, they called us and told us” there will be tomorrow a meeting in London of the partners. Jorge warned us of everything.

From its appearance at auction in April 2021, when It was going to be sold for 1,500 euros As a very minor work, until its exhibition at the Prado Museum in May 2024 (courtesy of the private collector who bought it) there are many stages covered by the film. “It is a world full of chiaroscuros and that is why I have tried to give that tone to the film: Caravaggio’s chiaroscur dealers They were, from my point of view, the protagonists. That a man or a lady determines the value of a picture that can be 300 million and pay 3,000 euros, at least, it seemed striking. “Is there no place for corruption?” I asked. They replied: “No, because This is an honor market and reputable. ”

Álvaro Longoria’s has not been an easy filming, always marked by uncertainty and forced a continuous reaction capacity. “Perhaps the third most difficult thing has been the cleanliness of so much information. I have tried to get, of everything recorded, an absolute reduction of the information strictly necessary for the viewer to follow the film. This is not a dissertation on Caravaggio, the art market or auction houses. I have preferred that the viewer’s imagination is the one that makes his own decisions.”

Unprecedented consensus

He Here is a man De Caravaggio has represented one of the greatest discoveries in art history, achieving an unprecedented consensus in terms of authentication, which involved experts, historians and institutions, including the Government of Spain. That’s why The Sleeper. The lost caravaggio It has the purpose of entertaining and even entertaining the expert viewer and, above all, the common of mortals.

“My goal is that spectator who wants to see a thriller, in this case, real, on a market where millions move and all the time are happening.

He Here is a man Painted by Caravaggio between 1605 and 1609 He was exposed at the Prado Museum From May 25, 2024 to February 23, 2025. Currently, it is located in the Barberini Palace, in Rome, where it is part of an exhibition of 26 (of the 60s that, approximately, there are in the world) Caravaggio. “We premiered the film in Italy coinciding with the presentation of the painting. It is not known where it will go later, but you have to go back here, since it cannot leave more than six months in Spain. What is clear is that the buyer (or the buyer (the best kept secret) will not hide it. He wants it to be seen.”