Kitchen Boy

In 1838 the Louvre opened a gallery of Spanish painting, and French artists got their first long look at Ribera and Zurbarán, figures hauled out of the dark by a single narrow light. Ribot took that lesson into the kitchen. On this tall, narrow canvas, 94 centimetres by 54, a boy works at a copper pan, his face and hands lit sharply while the room behind him sinks into brown. Ribot painted at night by lamplight, and the models for his kitchen scenes were usually people from his own household. The picture reached Amsterdam well before the museum that shows it existed. In November 1937 it hung a few streets from the Dam, at the dealer Frans Buffa and Sons, in an exhibition of Ribot's paintings and prints.