The Supper at Emmaus
Jean Honore Fragonard
1760–1761
- Medium
- Black chalk on ivory laid paper, laid down on off-white laid paper
- Dimensions
- Primary support: 18.3 × 26.8 cm (7 1/4 × 10 9/16 in.); Secondary support: 19.6 × 28 cm (7 3/4 × 11 1/16 in.)
- Genre
- Chalk
- Museum
- Art Institute of Chicago
Tags
chalkprints and drawingpaperpaper (fiber product)
About
Known for Rococo fantasies, Jean-Honoré Fragonard brought his light touch to this copy of an Italian Baroque masterpiece. This drawing was made for the erstwhile cleric and avid printmaker Abbé de Saint-Non, who commissioned Fragonard to make copies after important Old Master paintings in Italy. The original painting (now in the National Gallery, London) hung in the Palazzo Borghese in Rome when the two artists visited it in late 1760 or early 1761. It depicts the moment when two of Jesus’s astonished disciples recognize the risen Christ as he blesses a loaf of bread.
