Page of Supper at Emmaus by CARAVAGGIO in the Web Gallery of Art, a searchable image collection and database of European paintings and sculptures (1100-1850)

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Supper at Emmaus

1606
Oil on canvas, 141 x 175 cm
Pinacoteca di Brera, Milan

This later version of the subject is more restrained in colour and action than that in the National Gallery, London, less symbolic, more reverential. Instead of sumptuous still-life, we see only bread, a bowl, a tin plate, and a jug. The gestures of surprise are much the same though differently distributed.

An elderly innkeeper and an elderly maid wait anxiously on the three men who have arrived in the small village. The disciple to the left turns his face away towards Christ, the one on the right is seen in three-quarter profile. This time, instead of recoiling ftom Christ, they len forward in his direction, as with a tranquil gesture he blesses the bread.