Venetian school; c. 1600.

Venetian school; c. 1600.
"The Supper at Emmaus."
Oil on canvas. Relined.
It presents faults and restorations.
Measurements: 34 x 47 cm.
This work presents the same composition as the painting created by Simone Peterzano (Bergamo c. 1540-c. 1596), currently in the collection of the Uffizi Gallery, The painting was previously exhibited in the Sala Apollo of the Palatina Gallery and was attributed, as the plaque still attached to the precious frame informs us, to a certain Jacopo Pistoia, mentioned in passing by Vasari. About five years ago, the painting was the subject of an article by Mauro Pavesi, who related it to the Venetian production of Simone Peterzano, also known as Caravaggio's master. It probably comes from Titian's own composition, painted around 1545 and belonging to the collection of the National Gallery of Ireland, although there is an earlier version of the master in the Louvre Museum but in the latter the work takes place in an interior open to the landscape. In fact, in all three paintings we can see how the characters flank the white tablecloth table that dominates the center of the scene and that precedes the figure of Christ. e represents a scene narrated in the Gospel of Luke (24:13-35), in which the risen Christ appears to two of his disciples on the road to the village of Emmaus. They do not recognize him until, during supper, Christ breaks the bread, in a direct reference to the Eucharist. Both the meeting on the road and the supper episode have been widely represented in painting, although the second scene, depicted here, is more frequent.
The vigorous brushstroke and the color of the work indicate that it is a piece of the Venetian school. Considered a school that gave primacy to color over line, the tradition of that school in contrast to the Mannerism prevalent in the rest of Italy. The Venetian style exerted a great influence on the later development of Western painting. Portraiture was one of the school's favorite genres. It came to develop aesthetic and formal patterns that started from the Bellini and Pisanello type profile following the three-quarter profile pose of Antonello and the frontality of the splendor period, which begins with the devotion to the beauty of Giorgione and Vincenzo Catena. It was later Titian who, starting from the aforementioned characteristics, established a consolidated model of the court portrait. It is worth mentioning that during the seventeenth century copies of royal portraits were frequent, commissioned to be placed in the palaces of aristocrats and important prelates.