(Naples 1634–1705)
Supper at Emmaus,
oil on canvas, 45 x 65 cm, framed

We are grateful to Professor Riccardo Lattuada for confirming the attribution of the present painting on the basis of a digital photograph (written communication).

Lattuada has dated this previously unpublished painting to Giordano’s early period of the early 1650s. Born in Naples in 1634, Giordano painted his first documented work in 1653, but it is probable that he began his career some years earlier. The present work reflects the interest that Giordano had in Venetian painting, especially the work of Tintoretto and Veronese which is evident in his use of colour and his treatment of light. The composition also recalls the Supper at Emmaus by Titian (Paris, Louvre Museum) and it can be compared to a painting of the same subject formerly in the Colonna collection (now, private collection), and dated to circa 1665 (see O. Ferrari, G. Scavizzi, Luca Giordano. Nuove ricerche e inediti, Napoli 2003, p. 45, no. A079b, illustrated p. 164).

For stylistic reasons the present painting can also be compared to the slightly later Communion of the Apostles, of similar measurements (47 x 63.5 cm), in the Pallavicini collection in Rome, dated to 1659–1660 (see O. Ferrari, G. Scavizzi, Luca Giordano, Naples 1992, p. 261, no. A69, fig. 145).

In the inventory of the collection of Giovanna Battista Pignatelli d’Aragona Cortes, duchessa di Terranova e di Monteleone a painting of the same subject is listed, which possibly corresponds to the present work, as the measurements given in palmi 2 ½ x3 are very similar.

As Lattuada has noted, the bright execution and the refined palette of this newly discovered painting provides a fascinating example of the outstanding quality of Giordano´s early works.