The Big Empty. A New Interpretation of Velazquez's so-called La Mulata

Abstract

Velázquez's painting featuring a black kitchen maid standing among pots, plates, and pitchers is famously infused with ambiguity. The figure and her surroundings, which include an image-in-the-image of the Supper at Emmaus, visually and thematically interweave with one another in multiple ways that set up a series of subtle and elusive pictorial dialogues. The bodegón curiously appears to turn the Emmaus scene inside-out, emptying the biblical table in a contemporary setting. This paper interrogates these ambiguities, focusing on the painting's protagonist, the so-called mulata. It proposes a new interpretation of the work by delving into the identity of the maid and the insistent emptiness of her kitchen vessels within the specific context of the ongoing Spanish inquisition.