Scena di cucina con la cena in Emmaus

This may be the earliest surviving painting by Velazquez, made in Seville around 1618 when he was still a teenager, freshly out of his master's workshop and newly married to that master's daughter. It belongs to a Spanish genre called bodegon, kitchen scenes of ordinary people among pots and food. The young servant, a Moorish maid, leans over her jugs and plates, but her head is tilted, as though she has caught a sound from the next room. Behind her, small and dim, Christ breaks bread with two travellers at Emmaus, the moment they realise who he is. For years that background lay hidden under later paint, and a cleaning in 1933 brought the supper back into view.