A Popular Handbook to the National Gallery, Volume I, Foreign Schools / Including by Special Permission Notes Collected from the Works of John Ruskin

by Unknown

1466. THE WALK TO EMMAUS.

Lelio Orsi (Parmese: 1511-1586).

This painter, highly esteemed in his own day and of considerable talent, has remained less known than many others of inferior merit—a fact which is due, as Lanzi observes (ii. 357), to his having divided his time between Reggio and Novellara, comparatively obscure towns in the Emilia. He was born at Reggio, and was much employed there by the Gonzagi. He is supposed to have been a pupil of Correggio, whose works he is known to have copied, and of whom he was a personal friend. In 1546 he was banished for some unknown offence, and was not permitted to return to Reggio till 1552. During these years he settled at Novellara, where again he was employed by the Gonzagas. He must also have visited Rome, and studied the works of Michael Angelo. Most of Orsi's frescoes have perished. Some of his pictures are in the Gallery at Modena. He was celebrated in his day no less as an architect than as a painter.

There is an element of picturesqueness and almost modern romanticism in this picture. Christ and the disciples wear broad-brimmed hats and the dress of Italian peasants (cf. No. 753).