San Sebastiano returning from Japan may be a Caravaggio

A private collection San Sebastiano, attributed to Caravaggio by curator Shigetoshi Osano, is returning to Italy after the exhibition Caravaggio: la verità dell’arte in Sapporo, Nagoya, and Osaka. The painting has been in the same family since 1945 and was shown at Roberto Longhi's 1951 Milan Caravaggio exhibition, where Longhi called it "prossimo all'originale." Maurizio Marini included it in his Caravaggio catalogue after a 1989 restoration by Giuseppe Cellini. The work may have traveled to France via Louis Finson, a Flemish painter with a Naples workshop who had ties to Caravaggio. Recent studies by Gianni Papi and Cristina Terzaghi suggest Finson was not merely a copyist but a collaborator who may have completed Caravaggio's unfinished works. The painting likely dates from Caravaggio's first Neapolitan period, referencing the Flagellation in San Domenico Maggiore and a version in Rouen. Upon return, it will undergo restoration and diagnostic testing.