Christ Disappearing at Emmaus

The painting is unusual, however, since Fuseli very rarely painted biblical subjects. Although ordained as a priest, he moved away from religious doctrine, declaring himself a non-Christian in the late 1760's. Although ostensibly a religious painting, Fuseli seems to have been drawn to the subject on its own terms as a mythological dream sequence.

The painting shows Christ rising to the heavens after the disciples recognise him through the breaking of bread, an allusion to the eucharist, the Christian sacrament commemorating the last supper in which wine and bread are consecrated and consumed. This subject matter was popular in the retelling of one of the early resurrection scenes on the road to Emmaus and it followed an artistic theme tackled by the likes of Titian, Pieter Bruegel the Elder, Caravaggio and Diego Velázquez. 

This is an oil on canvas. It is housed at the Yale Center for British Art, Yale University, New Haven, Connecticut