Art Institute of Chicago

Christ at Emmaus Presenting the Bread

Bernardo Strozzi (Il Prete Genovese or Il Cappuccino)

Date

1630/40

Medium

Black chalk, heightened with white chalk, on gray laid paper with blue fibers

Culture

Italy

Department

Prints and Drawings

Institution

Art Institute of Chicago

Depicted in profile, Christ seems compellingly real, his humanity as tangible as the bread he holds in his gnarled hands or the folds of his cloak on the chair. Drawn with black and white chalks on a somewhat faded blue paper, this sheet was undoubtedly a preparatory study for one of the 18 known paintings of the Supper at Emmaus produced by this Genoese-born artist and his workshop, probably during his later years working in Venice. For a Capuchin monk like Strozzi, the story of Christ’s appearance to two strangers on the road to Emmaus offered a chance to portray his divinity in very human terms.

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