"THE SUPPER AT EMMAUS" BY RICCARDO FERRONI

Rome is so full of churches, and so many of them are dedicated to Mary, that it's easy to go to the wrong one.  We meant to go to Santa Maria del Popolo, in the Piazza del Popolo, to see the two paintings by Caravaggio they have there, The Crucifixion of St Peter and The Conversion of St Paul, but I had mis-remembered the church from my last visit and went to Santa Maria dei Miracoli instead, one of the twin churches that define the piazza, and spent fifteen minutes wondering what had happened to the chapel with the Caravaggios.

The other twin, Santa Maria di Montesanto, is known as the artists' church, and it has a surprising painting, The Supper at Emmaus, by Riccardo Tommasi Ferroni.
At first it looks like a conventional Baroque painting, until you notice the boy in the foreground is wearing trainers.  Then you notice that Jesus has put the meal on a newspaper. Ferroni painted it in 1982. It is a rare setting of a biblical story in a quasi-contemporary setting, which interested me, because in my narrative ceramics I've tried something similar.  (See Hip Hop Megillah.)

Ferroni was a bold choice for Santa Maria di Montesanto because some of his other paintings were pretty weird.  But then, that Caravaggio was pretty dodgy.