La cena de Emaús

Titian and his workshop painted this around 1545, at the height of his fame, when demand for his work meant assistants often helped fill large canvases like this one. The scene is a supper at the village of Emmaus, where two of Christ's followers, walking home stunned after the crucifixion, share a meal with a stranger and realise at the breaking of the bread that he is the risen Christ. Titian catches the instant of recognition, one disciple recoiling, the innkeeper looking on without understanding. He returned to this scene more than once, and this version is tighter and more focused than his earlier one in the Louvre. The National Gallery of Ireland bought it in 1870 from the sale of the Demidoff collection, an expatriate Russian family's estate in Italy.