The Supper at Emmaus

Rubens died at Antwerp at the end of May 1640, and his goods were put up for sale. Philip IV of Spain, who had been collecting him for years, bought this canvas out of that auction. It had been painted about two years earlier. The story comes from Luke. Two of Christ's followers are walking out of Jerusalem towards a village called Emmaus when a stranger falls in with them. They ask him to stay and eat, and when he blesses the bread they see who he is. The Prado points at the man off to the side, the innkeeper, who watches the table with no idea what is happening at it. Behind them the room opens onto a fortress and a baroque building with a figure leaning out of it, under a warm light the museum calls Italianate. By 1839 the canvas was hanging in the sacristy of the monastery of El Escorial.