The Supper at Emmaus
Michelangelo Merisi da Caravaggio (1571 to 1610) · 1601
On the evening of the first Easter, two of Christ's disciples share a meal with a stranger they met on the road to Emmaus. As he blesses the bread, they suddenly recognise him as the risen Jesus. Caravaggio catches that instant. The disciple on the left grips the arms of his chair and is about to leap up; the one on the right flings his arms wide, his left hand seeming to burst out of the picture towards you. The innkeeper stands by, puzzled, seeing nothing.
Everything is pushed to the front of the picture and lit by a hard light from the upper left. Christ is young and beardless, which shocked some viewers, and his face is calm at the centre of the commotion. Look at the basket of fruit teetering on the edge of the table, the cracked bread, the roast chicken, the shadow of the disciple's hand on the cloth. Caravaggio painted from live models in a darkened studio, and the torn sleeve of the left hand disciple and the scallop shell on the other's cloak, the badge of a pilgrim, are observed rather than invented.
The canvas was painted for the Roman nobleman Ciriaco Mattei, passed to the Borghese family, and was given to the National Gallery in 1839. It is one of the earliest Caravaggios to have reached Britain and among the first that visitors fell in love with. Compare it in your mind with the later Supper at Emmaus in Milan, painted after Caravaggio had killed a man and fled Rome: that version is dark and subdued, while this one is all youthful energy.
Did You Know? The outstretched hand of the disciple on the right is painted slightly too large, a deliberate trick to make it seem to reach out of the picture.
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