Christ with the disciples walking to Emmaus

Scarsella Ippolito called Scarsellino

(Ferrara c. 1550 - 1620)

The Gospel of Luke (24, 14-35) recounts the journey undertaken by Cleopas and another disciple to the village of Emmaus on the evening of the Resurrection of Christ. Along the way, the two were joined by an unknown traveller who later, breaking bread during dinner, revealed himself to them as the risen Christ.

Scarsellino, a painter from Ferrara working between the late 16th and early 17th centuries, admired for his excellent use of colour, close to the Venetian tradition, depicts this episode in a river valley landscape dominated by a crenelated village. Christ is in the foreground, in ancient garments but with sandals and a pilgrim's staff, and the two disciples are dressed like two wayfarers from the time that Ippolito made the painting. In the background to the left, along the river, two fishermen and a dog bring the viewer closer to the sacred episode thanks to their exquisitely everyday quality.

Object details

Commentary

As with most of the paintings in the collection by artists from Ferrara, the provenance of this work is unclear. Paola Della Pergola suggested that the canvas was purchased directly from the painter by Cardinal Borghese, given that the attribution to Ippolito Scarsella in the Borghese inventories is repeated with certainty (Della Pergola 1955). On the basis of documentary evidence, Kristina Hermann Fiore believed the work had passed through two other collections. The first connects the work to the confiscation of Cesari’s goods in 1607. In fact, in the inventory of the assets seized on that occasion, entry no. 64 describes ‘a medium-sized painting with a landscape, and Christ in Emmaus, without a frame’ (Hermann Fiore 2000 and 2002; Novelli 2008).

Evidence for this hypothesis may be provided by the fact that the artist travelled to northern Italy between 1590 and 1593 (Röttgen 1973) or that Cesari was present in the procession that accompanied Pope Clement VIII and Pietro Aldobrandini to Ferrara in 1598 to commemorate the official passage of the city to the dominion of the Papal States. On both occasions, Cesari could have met Scarsellino and received a work of his as a gift. Hermann Fiore’s second proposal is that the canvas was among those inherited by Pietro Aldobrandini from the collection of Lucrezia d’Este, though this suggestion is less persuasive, above all because no painter from Ferrara has been unambiguously identified in the documents relative to the inventory of goods of the Duchess of Urbino. At entry no. 33 in the list of her assets we read of ‘a work of Our Lord when he goes to Emmaus, executed in Flanders, with an ornate wooden frame decorated with six seraphim and four rosettes in relief’ (Della Pergola 1959). The painting was identified with entry no. 282 of the cardinal-nephew’s 1603 inventory, which describes ‘a Christ with two disciples travelling to Emmaus, by Bassano’ (Della Pergola 1960). The attribution of the canvas to Bassano is repeated in the Aldobrandini Pamphili inventory, which dates to before 1665: the same item number speaks of ‘a painting with Christ and the Disciples in Emmaus, by Bassano, on canvas over panel, four spans high, black frame, marked as no. 282’.

The most convincing hypotheses would seem to be that the work was purchased directly from the artist or that it formed part of the goods confiscated in 1607. The painting was in fact described and correctly attributed for the first time by Manilli, who specified its precise location in the Casino di Porta Pinciana: ‘Over the garden door, the painting of Our Lord going to Emmaus, with two disciples; it is by Scarsellino’ (Manilli 1650). The attribution is confirmed in subsequent inventories. In that of 1693, this entry appears: ‘In the centre, below the large work, a painting four spans square on canvas, with Our Lord who is going on a pilgrimage next to two other figures, with a gilded frame, by Scarsellino of Ferrara, no.’ That of 1790 mentions a ‘Christ with disciples in Emmaus, Scarsellino of Ferrara’. The 1833 fideicommissum inventory, finally, lists a ‘Jesus with a disciple, by Scarsellino of Ferrara, 5 spans 6 inches wide, 3 spans 10 inches high’. The work is characterised by figures and natural elements that recall the tradition of Veneto, in particular the influence of Tintoretto with regard to the light and that of Veronese for the arrangement of the protagonists. These traits allow us to date the painting to around 1590, in a period prior to Ippolito’s execution of the Massacre of the Innocents (inv. no. 209) and his decoration of Virginia’s apartment in the Palazzo dei Diamanti (1592-1593), where he worked with the Carracci, coming under their spell and influence (Novelli 1955 and 1964).

This work as well can be said to belong to that milieu which Cardinal Gabriele Paleotti called ‘painting of the affects’ in his treatise Discorso intorno alle immagini sacre e profane, published in Bologna in 1582. The famous passage from the New Testament is normally represented in the culminating moment of the supper when the two disciples recognise Christ: here the scene is depicted as an everyday one and is thus in line with the canons prescribed for works of art beginning with the Counter Reformation. In a river landscape, a valley dominated by a crenellated walled town forms the background. Christ occupies the foreground, dressed in traditional garb although with sandals and a pilgrim’s walking stick; the two disciples are attired like wayfarers of the era in which Ippolito executed the painting. To the left, along the river in the middle ground, two fishermen and a dog bring the observer into the sacred scene, thanks to their delightfully ordinary appearance.

The clothing of the figures recalls that used in a work with a similar subject by Lelio Orsi, executed between 1560 and 1564 and held today at the National Gallery of London (inv. no. NG 1466).

The river landscape in the background, the relaxed gesturing of the figures, the ‘serpentine’ position of Christ’s body and the chiaroscuro lighting of the dawn make the scene even more dramatic.

Lara Scanu