Hand-painted in oil
About this Artwork
The same episode, seen from the kitchen
The subject is the visit to the house of Martha and Mary in Luke 10, in which one sister serves and the other listens. This record is worth reading carefully: alongside religion, the catalogue files the work under still life and under a female portrait subject. That combination describes a specific seventeenth-century Spanish device in which the gospel episode appears as a small scene behind or beside a foreground of kitchen work and food.
Where it falls in the cycle
In the ministry, among the domestic teaching scenes. It has no miracle and no crowd, and it sits well before the Bethany episodes that lead into the Passion. Its subject is a rebuke about attention, which is exactly what a composition that puts the kitchen in front and the sermon behind is able to stage.
The catalogue entry
The record names Diego Velazquez, 1620, and the National Gallery, London. The dimensions are 60 by 103.5 centimetres — a wide horizontal format, small in height, which is the shape a foreground kitchen table takes. The style is given as Baroque and the artist as Spanish. The measured palette reads as brown. The record makes no claim about how the two parts of the picture relate, and neither does this page.
Sources
6 references- Diego Velázquez — Wikipedia
Diego Rodríguez de Silva y Velázquez (baptised 6 June 1599 – 6 August 1660) was a Spanish Baroque painter, the leading artist in the court of King Philip IV of Spain and Portugal, and of the Spanish Golden Age. He is generally considered on
- Velázquez, Diego — Getty ULAN
Spanish painter, 1599-1660
- Christ in the House of Martha and Mary — Wikidata
description: painting by Diego Velázquez, National Gallery; inception: 1618-01-01; dimensions: 60 × 103.5 cm; collection: National Gallery
- nationalgallery.org.uk — record for "Christ in the House of Martha and Mary"
Primary source record for this work (nationalgallery.org.uk).
- Christ in the House of Martha and Mary (Velázquez) — Wikipedia
Christ in the House of Martha and Mary is an oil-on-canvas painting by the Spanish artist Diego Velázquez, dating to his Seville period, now in the National Gallery, London. It was probably painted in 1618 (it is dated, but the "8" is "frag
- nationalgallery.org.uk — reference for "Christ in the House of Martha and Mary (Velázquez)"
Authoritative source for this work (nationalgallery.org.uk).
