Days before it was set to go on sale during Sotheby’s Old Masters auction on February 5, a double-sided panel by the Italian Renaissance painter Antonello da Messina was withdrawn from the high-profile evening sale. Today, Sotheby’s revealed that the Italian Ministry of Culture purchased the painting for $14.9 million before it could reach the auction block.

Ecce Homo and Saint Jerome in the Desert (ca. 1430–79) had a $10 million–15 million estimate and was being promoted as the highlight of the auction. Ahead of the sale, Sotheby’s touted it as the only surviving painting by Antonello—out of a total of about 40 existing ones—in private hands.