Exceptional loan to Borghese Gallery from Ireland: coming soon Velázquez's Woman in the Kitchen

From March 26 to June 23, 2024, the Borghese Gallery will exhibit the painting Woman in the Kitchen with Supper at Emmaus: this is the first known work by Diego Velázquez from the permanent collection of the National Gallery of Ireland. The work will be installed in the Sala del Sileno, the room that houses Caravaggio’s paintings, to offer a research focus on the occasion of this exceptional loan. In fact, the installation choice intends to open the comparison between the work of two absolute masters: the comparison between Woman in the Kitchen with Supper at Emmaus and Caravaggio’s paintings in the room lends itself to readings that reveal unprecedented perspectives of criticism and insight, placing the exhibition in that strand dedicated to the gaze of foreign artists on Rome, to which the museum has long devoted a substantial part of its research.

Considered the greatest Spanish painter of his time, Diego Velázquez was an international artist who visited Rome twice in his lifetime and was one of the ranks of foreign artists who drew teaching and inspiration from the Eternal City and its masters. He began his career in his native Seville and later became the principal artist at the court of Philip IV in Madrid. In the work featured in the exhibition, Velázquez paints Christ appearing to his disciples at Emmaus in the background, leaving the foreground to a servant girl working in the kitchen-a reversal of subjects directly inspired by Flemish painters such as Pieter Aertsen.

Image: Diego Velázquez, Woman in the Kitchen with Supper at Emmaus (c. 1617-1618; oil on canvas, 55 x 118 cm) © National Gallery of Ireland.

Exceptional loan to Borghese Gallery from Ireland: coming soon Velázquez's Woman in the Kitchen

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