Michelangelo Merisi da Caravaggio | The Supper at Emmaus | NG172 | National Gallery, London £ other Make this a monthly donation [{"Amount":20.0000,"CurrencyCode":"GBP","DonationDate":"2016-11-16T20:57:11","DonorDisplayName":"Irina ","DonorLocalAmount":20.0000,"DonorLocalCurrencyCode":"GBP","EstimatedTaxReclaim":0.0000,"ImageUrl":"","Message":"One of my favourite museums. Hope to visit again."},{"Amount":8.3800,"CurrencyCode":"GBP","DonationDate":"2016-09-06T21:24:18","DonorDisplayName":"Andreas","DonorLocalAmount":10.0000,"DonorLocalCurrencyCode":"EUR","EstimatedTaxReclaim":0.0000,"ImageUrl":"","Message":"It is great to visit for free such a prestigious museum.

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LocalAmount":2.0000,"DonorLocalCurrencyCode":"GBP","EstimatedTaxReclaim":0.5000,"ImageUrl":"","Message":"I hope this small contribution will allow you to continue your excellent work"},{"Amount":2.0000,"CurrencyCode":"GBP","DonationDate":"2016-10-20T16:29:27","DonorDisplayName":"Joshua Beaumont Houghton Boston","DonorLocalAmount":2.0000,"DonorLocalCurrencyCode":"GBP","EstimatedTaxReclaim":0.0000,"ImageUrl":"","Message":"Thank you for being you!"}] The Supper at Emmaus Why is this not on display?

Two of Jesus' disciples were walking to Emmaus after the Crucifixion when the resurrected Jesus himself drew near and went with them, but they did not recognise him. At supper that evening in Emmaus '... he took bread, and blessed it, and brake and gave to them. And their eyes were opened, and they knew him; and he vanished out of their sight' (Luke 24: 30-31). Christ is shown at the moment of blessing the bread and revealing his true identity to the two disciples. Caravaggio's innovative treatment of the subject makes this one of his most powerful works. The depiction of Christ is unusual in that he is beardless and great emphasis is given to the still life on the table. The intensity of the emotions of Christ's disciples is conveyed by their gestures and expression. The viewer too is made to feel a participant in the event. The picture was commissioned by the Roman nobleman Ciriaco Mattei in 1601. Caravaggio painted a second, more subdued version of 'The Supper at Emmaus' about five years after the Gallery's work.

Share this painting Supper at Emmaus, Caravaggio: Analysis, Interpretation Supper at Emmaus Medium: Oil and tempera on canvas Genre: History painting illustrating a Biblical story For analysis of paintings by Caravaggism painters How to Appreciate Paintings . Interpretation of Supper at Emmaus The brief career of Michelangelo Merisi da Caravaggio has taken its place as a turning point in the history of art . His short and violent life provides us with a story that is both sensational and dramatic and, four centuries on, his unique style of painting continues to demand our attention. For more on Caravaggio's style, see: Classicism and Naturalism in Italian 17th Century Painting . The Supper at Emmaus - a popular theme in Christian art - represents the story, told in St. Luke's Gospel when after the Crucifixion, two of Christ's apostles invite an apparent stranger, whom they have just met, to share their meal with them. When he blesses and breaks the bread, they realize that their guest is, in fact, the Resurrected Christ. St. Luke names one of the apostles as Cleophas, but he does not identify the other.

"And their eyes were opened and they knew him and he vanished out of their sight." Behind them, the innkeeper gapes uncomprehendingly. Caravaggio has chosen to represent one precise moment, namely that fraction of a second after the two apostles have realized that they are witnessing a miracle of unimaginable power. He freezes that moment, renders it permanent and enables us to take our time, to consider the miracle and to experience for ourselves that sense of shock and astonishment that was felt by the two apostles. It is not certain for whom Caravaggio painted his Supper at Emmaus, but we do know that it was made in Rome, probably in 1602, at the height of the Counter-Reformation. The Council of Trent, established to combat the continued threat of Protestantism, had declared in 1563 "that by means of the stories of the mysteries of our Redemption, portrayed by paintings or other representations, the people are instructed and confirmed in the habit of remembering and continually revolving in mind the articles of faith ...

also because the miracles which God has performed are set before the eyes of the faithful, that they may give God thanks, and may be excited to adore and love God and to cultivate piety." It was a time when the church strongly felt the need to communicate its message directly to the faithful, through carefully composed religious art , and was demanding from artists a particular clarity of representation. Please see: Catholic Counter-Reformation Art (c.1560-1700) for details. In order to comply with this directive, Old Masters had to be, before all other things, realistic. Caravaggio's brand of realism was thus tailor-made for the Biblical art of the time. He was a painter whose directness and immediacy came in complete contrast to the sophisticated elegance and artifice of the later sixteenth century (see, for instance, the work of his contemporary Annibale Carracci 1540-1609), and the style of art known as Mannerism . Stripping away the pretensions of late Mannerist painting , which had become appreciated and understood only by an educated elite, he gave to painting the simplicity and instant impact called for by the church authorities.

Caravaggio invests his religious paintings with a sense of powerful drama by means of his handling of light and shadow ( chiaroscuro ). "He never brought his figures out into the daylight" wrote Bellori, a seventeenth century writer on art, "but placed them in the dark brown atmosphere of a closed room, using a high light that descended vertically over the principal parts of the bodies, while leaving the remainder in shadow, in order to give force through a strong contrast of light and dark." The 'closed room' that Bellori mentions is a feature seen in many of Caravaggio's works. (See also: tenebrism .) A century or so before, during the era of Renaissance art , one of the main concerns of artists was the painting of distance or linear perspective . To Renaissance artists, the picture surface, in this case a piece of canvas, marked a barrier between the painted world and the real world. The real world, our world, exists on this side of the canvas, while safely behind the canvas Renaissance saints and apostles could be depicted, acting out their stories for us to observe, but never to enter into.

It was Caravaggio's decision to challenge this convention, and to shut off the notion of distance in his paintings, by setting his figures against a wall that seems no more than a few feet behind the surface of the picture. Instead of arranging his figures within a lucid and expansive picture space, he crowds them in and forces them forward. Caravaggio does not want his characters to exist behind the canvas; it is as if he wishes to do the impossible and project them physically through that canvas and out into our own space. The extended hand of the apostle on the spectator's right appears to be almost touching the canvas itself, from inside the picture. (See also the technique of foreshortening .) The elbow of the other apostle looks as if it has actually torn through the canvas, an idea that Caravaggio emphasizes by the device of ripping the elbow in the jacket that the figure wears. Finally, the basket of fruit, balanced precariously on the edge of the table, seems to need only the slightest nudge to send it toppling and spilling its contents onto the floor below. And that floor is no longer the floor in the picture; but the actual floor in the real world, in our own space.

Caravaggio breaks down the traditional barrier between what is real and what is painted and transforms a scene that happened in the past into something that is happening now, before our very eyes. The new religious atmosphere in Rome was ideally suited to respond to the vivid trompe l'oeil illusionism of Caravaggio's work. St. Ignatius Loyola's Spiritual Exercises urged the believer to engage all five senses when contemplating the Christian message. The faithful were encouraged not simply to learn the stories shown in religious paintings, but to imagine themselves as physically entering into these stories and undergoing the same experiences as the characters depicted. In pushing his figures and still life objects out into the world of the viewer, Caravaggio was providing exactly the kind of art wanted by the church in a time of fervent Counter-Reformation piety. But for many, Caravaggio's realism went too far. In 1602 he painted a St. Matthew for the church of San Luigi de' Francesi in Rome. It showed the bare-footed saint sitting with his legs crossed in a manner that made one foot appear to project out of the picture. The commission was rejected, according to Bellori because the priests said 'the figure had no decorum'.

The priests apparently did not want a dirty bare foot, no matter how saintly, thrust upon them, and Caravaggio had to paint a second version where the saint kneels, politely keeping his feet to himself. The Supper at Emmaus was subject to similar criticism, particularly from Bellori. "Besides the rustic character of the two apostles, and of the Lord who is shown young, and without a beard, Caravaggio shows the innkeeper serving him with a hat on his head. On the table there is a basket of grapes and figs and pomegranates, out of season." 'Lack of decorum' was a criticism often aimed at Caravaggio. His tendency to show the apostles as dirty, ragged and unkempt was always likely to cause offence, as the story of the rejected St. Matthew shows. Bellori's concern that the innkeeper is serving Christ with a hat on his head represents a similar prudishness, and his criticism that the basket of fruit is shown 'out of season' reveals a rigorous desire for total accuracy in the depiction of the Gospel stories. The Resurrection is, after all, celebrated at Easter, in the spring, and Caravaggio has chosen autumn fruits.

The choice of fruit on the table is, however, surely deliberate; for combined with the other items on the table, it has a symbolic meaning. The apple, here going rotten, is, of course, a symbol of the Temptation and of the Fall of Man. The coming of Christ is symbolized by the beam of light reflected through the glass vessel onto the tablecloth, which can be understood as a symbol of the Virgin Birth - the light penetrates the glass without breaking it - and the bread is easily recognizable as symbolic of the body of Christ, the Incarnation. Finally, the Sacrifice of Christ is symbolized by the grapes which Bellori criticizes. Grapes are the source of the wine, which becomes, at the Roman Catholic Eucharist, the Blood of Christ. Accordingly, Caravaggio has used the basket of fruit to emphasize and to underpin the meaning of the story that he paints. Caravaggio was born in northern Italy, and arrived in Rome in 1592, aged 21. His first years there were spent in poverty, and his earliest known paintings are of individual figures with still-lives.

Some time in the 1590s, he was taken up by Cardinal Francesco del Monte, in whose house he lived. The Cardinal and his friends provided a ready market for these paintings, a fine example of which is also in the National Gallery, London, the Boy Bitten by a Lizard. By 1602, the approximate date of the Supper at Emmaus, he had established a reputation as a powerful, dramatic realist, but his lifestyle was causing equal attention and no little controversy. In October 1600, he had been arrested in a street brawl; in February 1601 he had attacked and badly scarred a soldier. He appears regularly in police records, for fights and assaults, for damaging his landlady's property and non-payment of rent, and for various quarrels that ended in violence. In May 1605 he was arrested for possessing a dagger and a sword without a licence. Similar events occur until he fled from Rome in spring 1606, having murdered an opponent in yet another street brawl.

Caravaggio's lifestyle is not the kind that we associate with a painter of religious pictures, and many of his friends and acquaintances seem to have been drawn from the taverns of Roman low-life. It was these characters that he probably used as models in his painting. Rejecting traditional notions of preliminary sketching and compositional studies, Caravaggio worked directly onto the canvas, setting up the scene before him, almost as a kind of tableau vivant, and behaving, one imagines, like a director in a theatre, instructing his models how to sit, and which attitudes they were to hold. For the twentieth century, it is a compulsive story, of a man living in two worlds, sharing the sophisticated refinement of Cardinal del Monte and his circle, and yet becoming drawn to a kind of seventeenth century Roman nether-world, a world of squalor and violence. It is hardly surprising that his paintings, although ostensibly obeying the demands for Counter-Reformation realism, often caused offence. In a painting representing the Death of the Virgin, he is reputed to have used as a model for the Virgin Mary the bloated corpse of a dead prostitute.

His work though is undeniably arresting and its effect on the next generation of artists was immediate, from Rubens (1577-1640) and Rembrandt (1606-1669) in northern Europe, to Velazquez (1599-1660) and Zurburan (1598-1664) in Spain. For Bellori there were perfectly good reasons that explained why so many Italian artists adopted his style. "Many artists were infatuated with his manner and accepted it willingly, since without study or effort, it enabled them to make facile copies after nature and to imitate forms which were vulgar and lacking in beauty." Like so much of the best modern art of any historical period, Caravaggio's Baroque painting attracted criticism for not being something that it never set out to be. His lack of idealism, despite being called for by the church, was felt to be vulgar. His imitation of nature was thought to be lacking those intellectual qualities which for many people were necessary to prevent art from becoming simply mindless imitation. For details of Caravaggio's contemporaries, see: Italian Baroque Artists .

In spite of these criticisms Caravaggio continued to be very much in demand. He received important commissions in Malta, Sicily, and Naples, places that provided him with refuge during his period as a fugitive. He died in 1610 of a fever, in Porto Ercole, shortly after the Pope had granted him special absolution from his crime and he could return to Rome a free man. To be given a free pardon for murder indicates how valued his paintings were by the Church. Certain refined seventeenth century sentiments may well have been upset by Caravaggio's direct assaults on the senses, but in their power to communicate their narratives immediately and forcefully, his paintings are as valid now as they were for their original audience. NOTE: Caravaggio produced a second, more subdued version of this painting, five years later. Other Famous Paintings by Caravaggio Print of The Supper at Emmaus by Caravaggio | National Gallery Prints > 1600s > The Supper at Emmaus Print Two of Jesus' disciples were walking to Emmaus after the Crucifixion when the resurrected Jesus himself drew near and went with them, but they did not recognise him. At supper that evening in Emmaus '...

he took bread, and blessed it, and brake and gave to them. And their eyes were opened, and they knew him; and he vanished out of their sight' (Luke 24: 30-31). Christ is shown at the moment of blessing the bread and revealing his true identity to the two disciples. Caravaggio's innovative treatment of the subject makes this one of his most powerful works. The depiction of Christ is unusual in that he is beardless and great emphasis is given to the still life on the table. The intensity of the emotions of Christ's disciples is conveyed by their gestures and expression. The viewer too is made to feel a participant in the event. The picture was commissioned by the Roman nobleman Ciriaco Mattei in 1601. Caravaggio painted a second more subdued version of the Supper at Emmaus about five years after the Gallery's work.

Find more like this: Velázquez (Diego Rodríguez de Silva y Velázquez) | The Supper at Emmaus | The Met The Supper at Emmaus Velázquez (Diego Rodríguez de Silva y Velázquez) (Spanish, Seville 1599–1660 Madrid) Date: 48 1/2 x 52 1/4 in. (123.2 x 132.7 cm) Classification: Bequest of Benjamin Altman, 1913 Accession Number: 14.40.631 On view at The Met Fifth Avenue in Gallery 610 The picture may have been painted in Seville, where Velázquez was trained, or in Madrid, where he moved in 1623. The realism of the figures, the strong dramatic light, and the attention to still-life details recall the work of Caravaggio, which Velázquez would have known in Seville through copies. Christ is shown at the moment when he is recognized by two disciples following his resurrection, as "he took bread, blessed and broke it, and handed it to them".

Catalogue Entry Velázquez’s painting represents the culminating event of the gospel episode of the Supper at Emmaus. Two of Christ’s followers were traveling from Jerusalem to Emmaus, seven miles away from the city, three days after Christ’s death. They were joined on the road by a third pilgrim; they started to talk to him and told him what they had heard that day about Christ’s resurrection. They reached an inn and there they recognized the man as Jesus himself: "When he was at the table with them, he took bread, gave thanks, broke it and began to give it to them. Then their eyes were opened and they recognized him, and he disappeared from their sight." The disciples then returned to Jerusalem and told the apostles that they had seen the resurrected Christ (Luke 24: 13–35). The work is typical of Velázquez’s early career and of the paintings produced by him before his first trip to Italy, in 1629–31. During that time he lived in Seville and, from 1623, in Madrid.

The Supper at Emmaus has been dated to 1622–23, around the time when he moved from his birthplace to Madrid. The painting is powerfully Caravaggesque in style, and it is likely that Velázquez knew some of the copies of pictures by Caravaggio that are documented in Seville in the seventeenth century. The face of the model used for the disciple looking out of the scene is the same as the main character in the Waterseller of Seville (Apsley House, Wellington Museum, London). The support of the painting is a specific type of canvas, known as "mantelillo" or "mantel," with a recognizable diamond-shaped pattern; this type of canvas was often used by artists in Seville, Toledo, and southern Italy. The reddish ground used on the canvas is also typical of Velázquez’s early paintings. The provenance from a private collection in Seville in the nineteenth century may reasonably imply that the picture was painted in the city for a local patron. Three copies of the Supper at Emmaus survive. One was sold at Sotheby’s, New York, January 15, 1987, no. 64.

It was previously in the collections of King Louis Philippe of France, Lord Breadalbane and the London dealer Sabin. The canvas is slightly wider, suggesting that the MMA painting was cut down after this copy was produced. A second and later copy was in the collection of G. P. Dudley Wallis; a third was in a private collection in Spain. [Xavier F. Salomon 2011] Provenance José Cañaveral y Manuel de Villena, Seville (by 1870–at least 1891); Maria del Valle Gonzalez Moyano, widow Garzón, Seville (in 1899); Dr. Egli Sinclair, Zurich (by 1903; sale, Christie's, London, April 25, 1903, no.

101, for £315, bought in); ["a syndicate of Seville gentlemen" including Manuel de Soto, Zurich, and apparently also Heinemann, Munich, by 1906–at least 1909]; [Gimpel and Wildenstein, Paris, in 1910]; Benjamin Altman, New York (1910–13) Exhibition History New York. The Metropolitan Museum of Art. "Art Treasures of the Metropolitan," November 7, 1952–September 7, 1953, no. 124. New York. The Metropolitan Museum of Art. "Velázquez," October 3, 1989–January 7, 1990, no. 6. New York. The Metropolitan Museum of Art. "Velázquez Rediscovered," November 17, 2009–February 7, 2010, no catalogue. THIS WORK MAY NOT BE LENT, BY TERMS OF ITS ACQUISITION BY THE METROPOLITAN MUSEUM OF ART. References Federico de Madrazo y Küntz. Pocket agenda entry.

January 30, 1870 [Archivo del Museo Nacional del Prado, AP 18/2], mentions being shown this picture by Cañaveral. A. de Beruete. Velazquez. Paris, 1898, pp. 22–23, ill. p. 19, calls it an early work, undoubtedly authentic; mentions another picture of the same subject belonging to Lord Breadalbane, Perthshire. Jacinto Octavio Picon. Vida y obras de Don Diego Velazquez. Madrid, 1899, pp. 36, 204, as an early work, in the collection of Sra. Viuda de Garzón, Seville. M. R. "The Picture Sales." Burlington Gazette no. 2, vol. 1 (May 1903), pp. 46–47, ill. A. de Beruete. Velazquez. Revised translation of 1898 ed. London, 1906, pp. 13–14, 156–57, pl.

9, as an early work in the collection of Manuel de Soto, Zurich. R. A. M. Stevenson. Velasquez. London, 1906, p. 158, mistakenly as still in the collection of Maria del Valle Gonzalez Moyano. Narciso Sentenach y Cabañes. La pintura en Madrid desde sus orígenes hasta el siglo XIX. Madrid, 1907, p. 95, as the last work of his Sevillian days. Roger Fry. Letters. January 3–March 5, 1907 [see Ref. Sutton 1972], in letters of January 3, January 11, and March 5, 1907, notes that "two different owners both claim to have sole rights" to this picture and mentions the Munich dealer, Heinemann [the other "owner" is presumed by the editor to be Manuel de Soto, Zurich]; remarks that "in view of the dislike people have evinced towards it" he is not pursuing its purchase at the present time. Albert F. Calvert and C. Gasquoine Hartley.

Velazquez: An Account of His Life and Works. London, 1908, pp. 34, 212, no. 145, date it during the artist's early years in Seville and locate it in the collection of Don Manuel de Soto, Zurich. Walther Gensel. The Work of Velasquez. New York, 1908, p. 8, ill., dates it about 1618–20. Warren C. Bevan. Letter to Bruce E. Burt. August 11, 1909, states that it is owned by a "syndicate of Seville gentlemen," including Manuel de Soto, Spanish vice-consul in Zurich. Aureliano de Beruete and Marques de la Vega Inclan. Letter to Wildenstein. November 7, 1910, certify its authenticity. Aureliano de Beruete y Moret. Letter to Leon Hirsch. December 7, 1911 [the author of this letter is the son of the Velázquez expert of the same name], as an early work, not of the first magnitude.

"The Benjamin Altman Bequest." Metropolitan Museum of Art Bulletin 8 (November 1913), p. 238, ill. pp. 231 (installation view), 237. Walter Gensel. Velazquez: Des Meisters Gemälde. Ed. Valerian von Loga. 3rd ed. Stuttgart, 1914, p. 258, ill. p. 18, dates it about 1620. Handbook of the Benjamin Altman Collection. New York, 1914, pp. 39–40, no. 25, dates it to Velázquez's early period. Bryson Burroughs. Catalogue of Paintings. 2nd ed. New York, 1916, pp. 302–3, considers it an early work of Velázquez. August L. Mayer. Geschichte der spanischen Malerei. Leipzig, 1922, pp. 398, 400, dates it about 1618–20. François Monod.

"La Galerie Altman au Metropolitan Museum de New-York (2e article)." Gazette des beaux-arts, 5th ser., 8 (November 1923), p. 297, ill. p. 299, dates it at the end of the Sevillian period. August L. Mayer. Diego Velazquez. Berlin, 1924, pp. 44, 57, fig. 7, notes its similarity to the style of Herrera the Elder and the palette of Juan del Castillo. Walter Gensel. Velazquez: Des Meisters Gemälde. Ed. Juan Allende-Salazar. Stuttgart, [1925], p. 274, ill. p. 20, dates it about 1620–21. Roberto Longhi. "Un san tomaso del Velazquez." Vita artistica 1 (January 1927), pp.

4, 10, compares it to a Supper at Emmaus attributed to both Caravaggio and Alonso Rodríguez (Museo Nazionale, Messina), but finds it more in the style of Caracciolo than Caravaggio. Royal Cortissoz. "Paintings by Velasquez in America." International Studio 90 (May–August 1928), p. 38, ill. p. 35. Franz Wolter. Der Junge Velasquez - The Young Velasquez. Munich, 1929, pp. 5–7, 27–28, compares it unfavorably with a previously unpublished picture of the same subject (pl. 3, private collection, Spain) which he ascribes to Velázquez and dates after the MMA painting. Carl Justi. Diego Velazquez und sein Jahrhundert. [Zürich], 1933, no. 13, pl. 10, dates it about 1619. August L. Mayer. Velazquez: A Catalogue Raisonné of the Pictures and Drawings. London, 1936, p. 6, no.

15, pl. 6, dates it about 1619–23. Élie Faure. Velazquez: Gesamtwiedergabe seiner Gemälde. London, 1939, p. 21, no. 13, pl. 10, dates it about 1619. Harry B. Wehle. The Metropolitan Museum of Art: A Catalogue of Italian, Spanish, and Byzantine Paintings. New York, 1940, pp. 237–38, ill., dates it about 1620 and mentions the copy in the collection of Lord Breadalbane, Taymouth. Hans Vollmer in Allgemeines Lexikon der bildenden Künstler. Ed. Hans Vollmer. Vol. 34, Leipzig, 1940, p. 191, as from his early Seville period. Harry B. Wehle. "A Great Velázquez." Metropolitan Museum of Art Bulletin 1 (November 1942), p.

117, dates it about 1620 and observes it is "still in the cold, sculptural manner which the artist brought with him from Seville". Enrique Lafuente. Velazquez. London, 1943, pp. 11, 18, no. 15, pl. 17, dates it about 1619–20; considers it "an important step in the evolution of Velazquian still life with figures"; observes that the type of Christ is similar to a type often used by Zurbaran, and that both may have evolved from the "saints with elongated faces, short beards and moustaches" used by the sculptor Martínez. Margaret Breuning. "Metropolitan Re-Installs Its Treasures in Attractive Settings." Art Digest 18 (June 1, 1944), p. 5. Harry B. Wehle. Letter to Elizabeth du Gúe Trapier. May 15, 1947, redates it to about 1625–27, citing Beruete's [Ref.

1891] association of the painting with the Bacchus in Madrid. Elizabeth du Gué Trapier. Velázquez. New York, 1948, pp. 72, 133–36, 139, 392 nn. 214–15, figs. 84–86 (overall and details), as attributed to Velázquez; notes that "although authorship of this excellent picture has never been questioned, it must be noted that Velázquez rarely allowed his figures such dramatic gestures as are to be seen here or ever used this facial type of Christ"; sees the color choices and smoothness of the brushwork in this picture incongruous in the context of Velázquez's early style and finds no similarity between the head of one of the pilgrims here and that of a peasant in the Bacchus in Madrid [see Ref. Beruete 1891], and rejects Longhi's association of our Supper at Emmaus with Rodríguez's Emmaus painting in Messina [Ref. Longhi 1927]. Martin S. Soria.

"An Unknown Early Painting by Velazquez." Burlington Magazine 91 (May 1949), p. 124, as "most assuredly and indubitably by Velazquez"; notes that it strongly influenced Mateo Gilarte's canvas of the same subject [Museo de Santa Cruz, Toledo]. Art Treasures of the Metropolitan: A Selection from the European and Asiatic Collections of The Metropolitan Museum of Art. Exh. cat., The Metropolitan Museum of Art. New York, 1952, p. 230, no. 124, colorpl. 124, dates it about 1620. José Ortega y Gasset. Velazquez. New York, 1953, p. 54, pl. 16, as dated 1619–27. Margaretta M. Salinger. Velazquez. New York, 1954, pp. 3–4, pl. 2. Theodore Rousseau Jr. "A Guide to the Picture Galleries." Metropolitan Museum of Art Bulletin 12, part 2 (January 1954), p. 4.

Bernardino de Pantorba. La vida y la obra de Velázquez: Estudio biográfico y crítico. Madrid, 1955, pp. 77–78, no. 20, ill. (overall and detail), dates it about 1620 and states that the canvas must have been cut on both sides, since the copy (formerly Breadalbane collection) shows a larger scene. Kurt Gerstenberg. Diego Velazquez. [Munich], [1957], pp. 80–82, 251 n. 71, fig. 71, dates it about 1629–30, after the artist's first Italian journey, commenting on the influence of Caravaggio, in particular his Supper at Emmaus compositions in Milan [Brera] and London [National Gallery]. Juan Antonio Gaya Nuño. La pintura española fuera de España. Madrid, 1958, p. 319, no. 2826, dates it 1620–23. Martin Soria in George Kubler and Martin Soria.

Art and Architecture in Spain and Portugal and their American Dominions, 1500 to 1800. Baltimore, 1959, p. 255, as the last and one of the most accomplished works of Velázquez's Sevillian period. Martin S. Soria. "Velázquez and Tristán." Varia velazqueña: Homenaje a Velázquez en el III centenario de su muerte, 1660–1960. Ed. Antonio Gallego y Burín. Madrid, 1960, vol. 1, p. 459; vol. 2, pl. 28, comments that this painting marks the transition from Velázquez's first style in Seville (1617–20) to his early Madrid period (1622–29); sees the influence of Luis Tristán, particularly in the handling of the drapery. Fernando Chueca Goitia.

"El espacio en la pintura de Velázquez." Varia velazqueña: Homenaje a Velázquez en el III centenario de su muerte, 1660–1960. Ed. Antonio Gallego y Burín. Madrid, 1960, vol. 1, p. 156; vol. 2, pl. 28. José López-Rey. "Pincelada e imagen en Velázquez." Varia velazqueña: Homenaje a Velázquez en el III centenario de su muerte, 1660–1960. Ed. Antonio Gallego y Burín. Madrid, 1960, vol. 1, p. 204; vol. 2, pl. 28, dates it about 1627 or 1628. J.J. Martín González. "Velázquez, pintor religioso." Goya (July–October 1960), p. 30, ill. p.

20, observes its similarity to works of the Italian masters, particularly the school of Caravaggio; notes that the disciples were intentionally portrayed as common in order to idealize the figure of Christ. Bernardino de Pantorba. "Cuadros perdidos para España." Mundo hispánico [issue devoted to Velázquez] 14 (February 1961), p. 66. José López-Rey. Velázquez: A Catalogue Raisonné of His Oeuvre. London, 1963, pp. 45, 88, 128, no. 19, pl. 47, dates our picture 1628–29 and catalogues the workshop copy from the Breadalbane collection (no. 20, pl. 169); comments on the similarity between one of the disciples' faces and the face of a figure in the background of the Prado Bacchus. José Camón Aznar. "Algunas precisiones sobre Velázquez." Goya (March–April 1963), pp. 282–83, figs.

3, 5 (overall and detail), compares it with the Emmaus composition by Rodríguez in Messina and suggests that our picture might be a work by Rodríguez from about 1620. José Camón Aznar. Velázquez. Madrid, 1964, vol. 1, pp. 255–60, ill. (overall and detail), attributes it to Velázquez between 1622–23, before the Prado's Bacchus, but again raises the possibility of an attribution to Rodríguez; compares the figure of Christ with that in Gilarte's Supper at Emmaus in Toledo, observing that Gilarte's work may have been inspired by Velázquez, or that both works may be based on an Italian model, since Gilarte was in Rome in his youth. Leo Steinberg. "José López-Rey, Velázquez: A Catalogue Raisonné of His Oeuvre." Art Bulletin 47 (June 1965), pp. 281, 283, doubts the attribution to Velázquez, citing Trapier [Ref.

1948], and adds his own misgivings about the composition's flatness and lack of tension. René Gimpel. Diary of an Art Dealer. English ed. New York, 1966, p. 303, describes the sale of this picture to Altman in 1910. José López-Rey. Velázquez' Work and World. London, 1968, p. 53, pl. 52, as from about the same time as the Prado's Bacchus, which he dates 1628–29. P.M. Bardi. L'opera completa di Velázquez. Milan, 1969, p. 89, no. 21, colorpl. 8, dates it about 1620. Calvin Tomkins. Merchants and Masterpieces: The Story of The Metropolitan Museum of Art. New York, 1970, p. 171 [rev., enl. ed., 1989]. Francis Haskell. "The Benjamin Altman Bequest." Metropolitan Museum Journal 3 (1970), pp.

271–72, fig. 11. Neil MacLaren revised and expanded by Allan Braham. National Gallery Catalogues: The Spanish School. London, 1970, p. 116 n. 3, notes brushmarks on the underpainting where Velázquez wiped his brush [see also Ref. Mallory 1997]. Everett Fahy. "Juan de Pareja by Diego Velázquez: A History of the Portrait and its Painter." Metropolitan Museum of Art Bulletin 29, part 2 (June 1971), unpaginated, fig. 1, as The Supper at Emmaus, a "typical early work" painted by the time Velázquez was twenty. Denys Sutton, ed. Letters of Roger Fry. New York, 1972, vol. 1, pp. 279–280, 282, letter nos. 215 (January 3, 1907), 216 (January 11, 1907), 219 (March 5, 1907). José Gudiol.

Velázquez, 1599–1660. New York, 1974, pp. 74, 326, no. 29, figs. 48 (color), 50 (detail), dates it about 1622–23, just after Velázquez's first visit to Madrid, but before he moved there in 1623, based on its considerable evolution from his earlier works; comments on the contrast between the idealized type of Christ versus the pilgrims, who seem to be "individuals chosen at random from the common mass of humanity—almost as if they were characters from one of his early 'bodegones'"; sees affinities with Caravaggio's Supper at Emmaus (National Gallery, London). Velázquez. Paris, 1974, pp. 38–40, ill. [English edition, pp. 26–27, 30–31, fig.

11], dates it 1620 and calls it an "unexpected work" in the extravagant gestures of the pilgrims and the insipid face of Christ, a work that "does not indicate any particular talent for religious painting". Julián Gállego. Velázquez en Sevilla. 1st ed. Seville, 1974, pp. 101, 117, no. 20, cites different dates assigned to the work; calls it a disconcerting picture, in technique and color, noting that Camón Aznar [Ref. 1963] tentatively attributed it to Rodríguez. José Camón Aznar. Summa artis: Historia general del arte. Vol. 25, La pintura española del siglo XVII. 2nd ed. Madrid, 1978, p. 145, calls it "attributed to Velázquez"; mentions it in relation to Gilarte's painting of the subject in Toledo. José López-Rey. Velázquez: The Artist as a Maker, with a Catalogue Raisonné of His Extant Works. Lausanne, 1979, pp.

44, 100, 284, no. 42, p. 285, pl. 111, dates it 1628–29 and notes that although the copy shows an extended composition, this does not "necessarily imply" that the original canvas was cut down [see Ref. Pantorba 1955]; observes that copies of 17th century paintings were sometimes altered to conform to a different spatial sensibility. Howard Hibbard. The Metropolitan Museum of Art. New York, 1980, pp. 328–29, fig. 592. Marianna Haraszti-Takács. Spanish Genre Painting in the Seventeenth Century. Budapest, 1983, p. 89, fig. 15, notes that it is "conceived in the same spirit" as Velázquez's non-religious genre paintings. Jonathan Brown. Velázquez: Painter and Courtier. New Haven, 1986, pp. 56, 278, no. 11, pl.

62, as one of four extant religious pictures by Velázquez painted after 1623; comments on its poor state of preservation and calls it a hybrid work, combining the rustic figure types of the Seville period with an Italianate emphasis on gesture as a means of dramatic expression, the latter being "only imperfectly assimilated". Maurice Sérullaz with the collaboration of Christian Pouillon. Velázquez. New York, 1987, p. 24, fig. 27, dates it 1628–29; generally discusses Velázquez's approach to religious painting as "marked by a cautious accuracy," rooted in human experience rather than the mystical. Julián Gállego. Velázquez. Exh. cat., The Metropolitan Museum of Art. New York, 1989, pp. 84–87, no. 6, ill.

(color), notes that scholars accept it as an autograph work; emphasizes the originality of the composition and color in comparison to paintings of this subject by Velázquez's contemporaries and to Velázquez's own works of the period; dates it to Velázquez's Seville period, between trips to Madrid. Michael Frede. "Fictions of Truth: Velázquez at the Metropolitan Museum." Arts Magazine 64 (April 1990), p. 64, comments upon the "love for the perceptible detail" in Velázquez's early paintings, observing that the tablecloth in this picture "with its folds and crimps and texture, is extremely sensual". Odile Delenda. Velázquez, peintre religieux. Geneva, 1993, pp. 38, 55, colorpl. 6, compares our figure of Christ to that in Caravaggio's Supper at Emmaus (National Gallery, London); notes that the disciples shown here are examples of the popular types that often appeared in works from the beginning of the 17th century depicting the "sacralisation" of the everyday. José López-Rey. Velázquez.

Cologne, 1996, vol. 1, pp. 69, 154, 189; vol. 2, pp. 100–01, no. 42, ill. (color), dates it 1628–29. Nina Ayala Mallory. "Una observación técnica acerca de Velázquez." Goya (January-February 1997), pp. 219–20, fig. 7 (detail), comments on Velázquez's habit of cleaning his brush on the background of his canvases and notes that although the awkwardness of this composition has led to doubt about its attribution, the presence of these distinctive brushmarks provides evidence of his hand. Maurizio Marini. Velázquez. Milan, 1997, pp. 53, 153, no. 28, ill. pp. 52, 53 (color, overall and detail), 153, dates it 1620 and comments on its affinities with Caravaggio's "Supper at Emmaus" in the National Gallery, London.

Miguel Morán Turina and Isabel Sánchez Quevedo. Velázquez: Catálogo completo. Madrid, 1999, pp. 94–95, no. 39, ill. (color). Fernando Marías. Velázquez: Pintor y criado del rey. Madrid, 1999, p. 96, fig. 57 (color), believes it was painted after Velázquez's visit to Rome and sees in its dynamic and dramatic composition the influence of Caravaggio's paintings with the story of Saint Matthew (church of San Luigi dei Francesi, Rome); erroneously dates the painting "1529–31" in the caption [presumably sic for 1629–31];. Jorge Montoro, ed. Velázquez: El pintor de la luz. Madrid, 2001, p. 289, ill.

(color), dates the picture 1619–31 and notes that the disparity of influences observed in it by critics has led to disagreement about its dating; believes it could just as easily date from the Seville period as from after Velázquez's first trip to Italy, since he could have absorbed Italian influences from seeing collections in Madrid. Fernando Marías in Velázquez. Exh. cat., Palazzo Ruspoli, Rome. Milan, 2001, p. 90, fig. 6 (color), discusses it among other early religious pictures with problematic chronology; dates it about 1628–32. Amador Schüller Pérez. La patología en la pintura de Velázquez. Madrid, [2002], p. 34. Jonathan Brown. "Velázquez and Italy." The Cambridge Companion to Velázquez. Ed. Suzanne L. Stratton-Pruitt. Cambridge, 2002, p.

45, ill., mentions this picture—painted "between 1623, when he was 'pintor real', and 1629"—as an example of Velázquez's early deficiencies in composing a convincing historical narrative; notes that the artist "is clearly attempting to inject movement and drama into the composition although his success is limited. Each figure seems to inhabit his own world, and again the definition of space and the placement of the figures within it is awkward". Maribel Bandrés Oto. La moda en la pintura: Velázquez usos y costumbres del siglo XVII. Pamplona, 2002. Victor Bergasa. "Un écrivain de la fin du XIXe siècle face à Velázquez: Jacinto Octavio Picón." Velázquez aujourd'hui. Ed. Geneviève Barbé-Coquelin de Lisle. Anglet, France, 2002, p. 246. Jane Boyd Philip F. Esler. Visuality and Biblical Text: Interpreting Velázquez' "Christ in the House of Martha and Mary" as a Test Case. Vol.

26, Florence, 2004, pp. 134, 136–37, ill. (color), notes that the knife and its shadow, depicted on the edge of the table in this picture, creates one continuous form read by the viewer as a "hieroglyph". Maurizio Marini. Velázquez, consonanze e dissonanze: Marie de Rohan, duchessa di Chevreuse alla corte di Madrid. Venice, 2004, pp. 10, 27. Charlotte Hale. "Dating Velázquez's 'The Supper at Emmaus'." Metropolitan Museum Journal 40 (2005), pp. 67–78, figs. 1, 3–4, 6 (overall, x-radiograph mosaic, and infrared reflectogram details), colorpl.

7, notes that the type of canvas (called 'mantelillo' or 'mantel') used for this painting was "woven with intermittent clusters of small diamonds," and was used during the seventeenth century in Naples, Toledo, and Seville; adds that all the works of Velázquez in which such patterned canvases have been identified are from his Seville period, and have in common religious subject matter; also notes that the "iron earth or naturally occurring heterogeneous mixture of minerals colored by iron oxide . . ." is identical to the clay grounds the artist used in other works of the Seville period, and is found only in the pictures he produced in Seville; mentions other stylistic and technical details, all pointing to the artist's Seville period; notes that the paint is "handled with great economy of means and extraordinary facility . . . [and that] such skill is extremely rare and has to be taken into account by those who would question the attribution to Velázquez; comments on the picture's severely compromised state, common in his Seville period works, due to the clay grounds used by the artist at this time; believes the picture can be dated with great precision to 1622–23.

Esmée Quodbach. "The Age of Rembrandt: Dutch Paintings in The Metropolitan Museum of Art." Metropolitan Museum of Art Bulletin 65 (Summer 2007), pp. 31–32, fig. 31 (Altman gallery photograph). Santiago Alcolea i Gil. Velázquez. Barcelona, 2007, p. 23, fig. 16 (color), dates it 1622–23 and suggests that the dynamic Caravaggesque composition may be "the fruit of what Velázquez observed in Madrid" while he was there briefly in the middle of 1622. Javier Portús in Velázquez's Fables: Mythology and Sacred History in the Golden Age. Ed. Javier Portús. Exh. cat., Museo Nacional del Prado. Madrid, 2007, pp. 17, 19, 47, refers to it as a work from Velázquez's "early years at court, while he was still indebted to the world of Seville". Gabriele Finaldi in Velázquez's Fables: Mythology and Sacred History in the Golden Age.

Ed. Javier Portús. Exh. cat., Museo Nacional del Prado. Madrid, 2007, p. 176, fig. 57 (color), believes it was produced shortly before the artist's departure for Italy in 1629 [but the picture is dated 1622–23 in the caption]. Alfonso Pleguezuelo. "Rufina, mártir y alfarera." En torno a Santa Rufina: Velázquez de lo íntimo a lo cortesano. Ed. Benito Navarrete Prieto. [Seville], [2008], pp. 50, 297, refers to the dish at the center of the table as a "humble white Triana-ware plate," of a kind that appears frequently in Velázquez's paintings of this period, including "The Luncheon" (Hermitage, Saint Petersburg) and a painting of the same subject in the Museum of Fine Arts, Budapest. Ignacio Cano.

"Apuntes para la historia del coleccionismo de la obra de Velázquez en Sevilla." En torno a Santa Rufina: Velázquez de lo íntimo a lo cortesano. Ed. Benito Navarrete Prieto. [Seville], [2008], pp. 152, 345, notes that the copy of our picture in the sale of Louis-Philippe measured 120 x 154 cm and concludes that our original has been considerably reduced in size. Javier Portús. "Elogio de la calidad (la construcción del catálogo razonado de Velázquez)." En torno a Santa Rufina: Velázquez de lo íntimo a lo cortesano. Ed. Benito Navarrete Prieto. [Seville], [2008], pp. 271, 399. Fernando Checa. Velázquez: The Complete Paintings. [Antwerp], 2008, p. 99, ill.

(color), due to its compositional awkwardness, interest in still life, and the realism of the pilgrim's faces, dates it 1628–29, immediately before Velázquez's first trip to Italy. Salvador Salort Pons. Diego Velázquez: Pintor, 1599–1660. Madrid, 2008, pp. 90–91, fig. 45 (color), dates it 1628–29, noting its similarity to Velázquez's Seville paintings and to the work of north European Caravaggists; comments on compositional weaknesses, such as the failure to suggest space between the two pilgrims, creating the impression that one has been superimposed on the other. Kathryn Calley Galitz. The Metropolitan Museum of Art: Masterpiece Paintings. New York, 2016, p. 282, no. 212, ill. pp. 209, 282 (color). Frame The frame is from southern Spain and dates to about 1600 (see Additional Images, figs. 1–3).

This frame is made of pine and is carved with distinctive bold form. It is water gilded and painted. The bead-and-reel ornament at the inner molding is within a row of whimsical spined acanthus leaves with lateral fluting which ascend an ogee cove and terminate in frond leaves at the corners. A knull-and-dart ornament wraps the top edge and falls back to a pearling row before the back edge. Though this frame has been reduced slightly in height and at the corners, it retains much of its original gilding and blue paint. The frame was put on the picture in the 1980s.

[Timothy Newbery with Cynthia Moyer 2015; further information on this frame can be found in the Department of European Paintings files] Timeline of Art History (2000-present) Essays Category:Supper at Emmaus by Caravaggio (London) - Wikimedia Commons Category:Supper at Emmaus by Caravaggio (London) From Wikimedia Commons, the free media repository Italiano: Michelangelo Merisi, detto il Caravaggio Description Title The Supper at Emmaus Date 1601 Room 32 Accession number NG172 Credit line Presented by the Hon. George Vernon, 1839 Notes Painted for Ciriaco Mattei References Retrieved 3 May 2013 Media in category "Supper at Emmaus by Caravaggio (London)" The following 17 files are in this category, out of 17 total. Michelangelo Merisi da Caravaggio (1571–1610) | Art UK Art UK | Discover Artists Michelangelo Merisi da Caravaggio (1571–1610) View all 15 (Baptised Milan.

30 September 1571; died Port’ Ercole, 18 July 1610). The most powerful, original and influential Italian painter of the 17th century. Although his career was brief (he was only 38 when he died) and his output was fairly small (there are about 70 surviving pictures by him), he had an immense impact on his contemporaries, creating a bold and naturalistic style that broke decisively with the prevailing vapid Mannerism and inspired a host of imitators. Read more His baptismal record, discovered in 2007, indicates that he was born in Milan, but he grew up in Caravaggio, near Bergamo, and takes his name from the town. From 1584 to about 1588 he served an apprenticeship in Milan under the undistinguished painter Simone Peterzano (c.1540–c.1596) and by about 1592 he had moved to Rome, which was to be the main centre of his activity.

His career there is not firmly documented until 1599 and in his early years he is said to have endured hardship, taking on whatever hackwork he could to scrape a living. He progressed to assisting Giuseppe Cesari, then to independent work, and in the mid-1590s a dealer sold some of his pictures to Cardinal Francesco del Monte, who became his first important patron (Caravaggio was a paid retainer in his household for about three years, c.1597–1600). Del Monte was a sophisticated and many-sided man who enjoyed various pleasures, including music and, so it is said, parties at which boys dressed up as girls. Caravaggio's earliest surviving works are mainly pictures involving fleshy, effeminate young men, and they presumably reflect his own sexual tastes (he seems to have been bisexual but predominantly homosexual) as well as those of his patron.

These pictures are fairly small in size and very intimate in feeling, with a startling sense of physical presence: the strongly lit, sharply detailed figures are brought up close to the front of the picture space and typically gaze at the spectator with a look of blatant erotic invitation (Bacchus, c.1597, Uffizi, Florence). Caravaggio kept this sense of immediacy and closeness throughout his career, his figures usually standing out against a plain background with little sense of depth, but in the late 1590s he abandoned clear lighting in favour of the murky chiaroscuro that is one of the most distinctive features of his mature paintings: Bellori describes his early work as ‘sweet, clean and without those shadows that he later used’. It was probably through del Monte that Caravaggio gained his first public commission—two large canvases of the Calling of St Matthew and the Martyrdom of St Matthew for the side walls of the Contarelli Chapel in S. Luigi dei Francesi; they were painted in 1599–1600 and are his first documented works.

An altarpiece of St Matthew and the Angel was added in 1602 and by this time Caravaggio had already completed a second major public commission—two paintings for the Cerasi Chapel in S. Maria del Popolo: the Crucifixion of St Peter and the Conversion of St Paul (1600–1). All these pictures, and particularly the last two, were immensely original in their dramatic use of light and shade, their economy and force of design, and their down-to-earth realism—the familiar stories being seen in a totally new way and played out by solid, substantial, flesh-and-blood people rather than the traditional idealized figures. They established Caravaggio as the most exciting painter in Rome and changed the direction of his career: from now on he devoted himself mainly to large, deeply serious religious pictures for public settings, rather than intimate works for the rarefied taste of connoisseurs. From the beginning of his public career, his work was controversial, as many contemporaries found his realism inappropriate or abhorrent in a religious context. Several of his major works were refused on such grounds of decorum or theological incorrectness and were replaced with more conventional pictures by Caravaggio himself or other painters.

Among the rejected paintings was the Death of the Virgin (1605–6, Louvre, Paris), which shows the Virgin as a thoroughly believable corpse rather than in the traditional way as a woman who appeared to be merely sleeping before being received into heaven. It was turned down by the church of S. Maria della Scala and replaced with a picture by Saraceni. Baglione writes that Caravaggio's picture was removed because he ‘so disrespectfully made the Madonna swollen up and with bare legs’, and another early account says that her figure was based on the body of a drowned prostitute fished out of the River Tiber. However, the controversial painting was soon bought by Vincenzo Gonzaga, Duke of Mantua (on the recommendation of Rubens), and Caravaggio's other rejected pictures were likewise quickly acquired by discerning collectors, including Cardinal Scipione Borghese . Whilst Caravaggio was becoming the most famous painter in Rome on account of such works, he was also achieving notoriety for his violent and loutish way of life.

In the years 1600–5 he built up a lengthy criminal record for various cases of assault and insulting behaviour, then in 1606 he killed a man in a fight over a wager on a tennis match. He fled Rome, fearing he would be executed for murder, and spent the remaining four years of his life as a fugitive from justice, his travels taking him to Naples (1606–7), Malta (1607–8), Sicily (1608–9), and back to Naples again (1609–10). Wherever he went he gained important commissions and had a major influence on local artists. During these years his work became more austere and poignant, as in the Beheading of St John the Baptist (1608, Valletta Cathedral, Malta), his largest painting and a work of the utmost tragic power. His life continued to be fraught with danger: in 1608 he was imprisoned on Malta but escaped, and in 1609 he was badly wounded in the face in Naples. He died of fever on the way to Rome, where he thought a pardon was imminent.

He had no pupils, but a legion of followers (the Caravaggisti), and his work, together with that of the Carracci, inaugurated a new era in Italian painting (see Baroque). Caravaggio continued to be a famous name throughout the 17th century, but he was regarded by many as an ‘evil genius’ (in the words of Vicente Carducho, writing in 1633), whose influence on other artists was pernicious. In 1672 Bellori wrote ‘There is no doubt Caravaggio advanced the art of painting, because he came upon the scene when realism was not much in fashion and when figures were made according to convention and satisfied more the taste for gracefulness than for truth’; however, Bellori also thought he had ‘debased the majesty of art’, and that because of him ‘everyone did as he pleased, and soon the value of the beautiful was discounted’. Interest in Caravaggio declined in the 18th century (he is not mentioned in Reynolds's Discourses), but revived in the mid-19th century.

By this time his rejection of ideal beauty could be seen to have the advantage of truth, although there were still those, like Ruskin, who saw in him ‘perpetual seeking for and feeding upon horror and ugliness, and filthiness of sin’. Serious historical research on him began in the early years of the 20th century, since when he has attracted an enormous amount of critical commentary and speculation, so much so that Ellis Waterhouse has written that ‘the innocent reader of art-historical literature could be forgiven for supposing that his place in the history of civilization lies somewhere in importance between Aristotle and Lenin’. Text Source: The Oxford Dictionary of Art and Artists (Oxford University Press) Share this page

Question: On view in London's National Gallery, the work The Supper at Emmaus is the work of which painter?
Answer: CARAVAGGIO