Flemish School, 17th century Appearance of Jesus on the Road to Emmaus Oil on copper, 28 x 22 cm With frame, 37 x 31 cm The biblical episode depicted on this copper is the appearance of Jesus on the road to Emmaus, which occurred three days after his death. Along the road, two of his disciples were walking to reach the village of Emmaus, about twelve kilometers from Jerusalem. Absorbed in their thoughts, they were joined by a stranger who began to discuss with them the recent events that had happened to Jesus of Nazareth, also mentioning his alleged resurrection. The next episode is the supper in Emmaus, when the two disciples recognize their master as he blesses the bread and then suddenly disappears from their sight. In the Gospel of Luke (24:14-35), this journey undertaken on the evening of Christ's Resurrection by Cleopas and another of his disciples is recounted, whose name is not specified and whom theologians have not been able to identify with absolute certainty in subsequent centuries; despite this, the episode has enjoyed enormous success, especially for the catechetical value of the recognition of Christ and divine action in everyday life, but also for the close connection with the episode of the supper: in fact, since the Renaissance, both scenes have been widely represented through different and varied settings, clothes, and compositions. In this case, the technique of painting on copper makes the pictorial corpus more luminous and fluid, enhancing the chiaroscuro effects of the draperies and giving greater liveliness to the colors of the background and the elements of the surrounding vegetation. The lenticular treatment of the golden embroideries, Christ's halo, the foliage, and the background architectures is perfectly balanced with an orderly and structured layout around the three characters, arranged progressively along a diagonal line that allows them to be observed in their singularity as well as in the dialoguing and cohesive whole of the group on the road. The increase in the production of the metal support between the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries is due to several factors: from the improvement of quarry extraction techniques to the invention of the rolling mill (the first examples of roller presses, powered by water mills, appear in Leonardo's Codex Atlanticus) which, with mechanical beating, made it possible to obtain regular sheets quickly and without melting. The copper sheet proved ideal for oil painting as it constituted a non-absorbent, rigid, smooth support characterized by the same reddish color that was used for the preparation of the backgrounds; these characteristics were appreciated by artists throughout the European continent and in particular by Flemish artists, both for the qualities of the support and for the availability of this material in Flanders: the main production centers were in fact Antwerp, Hamburg, and Amsterdam, all cities linked to the monopoly that the Fugger family held on this metal. This same copper can be traced back to Flemish production given the descriptiveness of the scene in its smallest details, such as the plays of light on the foliage, the cold tones rendered with a unifying light, and a more open spatiality despite the small size of the support.