I pellegrini di Emmaus

Titian painted this supper around 1533, and he plainly had Leonardo's Last Supper in mind: the long table seen straight on, Christ at the centre against a window onto open country. The story is the quiet twin of that more famous meal. Two travellers had walked with a stranger to the village of Emmaus after the crucifixion, invited him to eat, and knew him for the risen Christ only when he broke the bread, the instant caught here. The canvas then had a long life of its own. It hung among the Gonzaga dukes' pictures in Mantua, was bought in 1628 by Charles I of England, and after his execution passed to Louis XIV, which is how it came to the Louvre. A small dog waits under the table, and a boy in servant's clothes leans in to look.