Dinner At The Home Of Simon The Pharisee

Emilian school of the 18th century

Dinner at the home of Simon the Pharisee

Oil on canvas oval, cm 83 x 64

With frame, cm 90 x 71

The episode of the Supper at Simon’s house is recorded in the Gospel according to Luke, at the end of the seventh chapter: «One of the Pharisees invited him to eat with him. He entered the house of the Pharisee and sat down at table. And behold, a woman, a sinner of that city, knowing she was in the house of the Pharisee, came with a jar of scented oil, and stood behind him, and groaned at his feet, and began to bathe them with tears, and then wiped them with her hair, He kissed them and sprinkled them with fragrant oil» (Lk 7,36-39).

In the episode, Magdalene, sincerely repentant, kisses and sprinkles oil on the feet of Christ, washed with her tears. The woman is portrayed in the center of the scene, in the foreground, while she dries them with her hair. Jesus is caught in profile with his bust turned towards the guests sitting on the opposite side of the table, intending to listen to him or to lose themselves in chatter among them. The light coming from the upper section of the composition highlights the actions of the various characters, those who talk, those who observe in silence, those who move around the table. The work, by the Emilian school dated around the beginning of the eighteenth century, shows similarities with the work of artist born in Bologna in 1685 and student of the painter Modenese Luigi Caula. The quick stroke and the cursive strokes refer to some of the most famous pieces of the master’s production, such as the Death of Saint Anna of the church of San Pietro al Foro in Brescia or the so-called Pietà di San Zeno, having the same location, Both were performed around the 1720s.