Krass, Urte IngaUrte IngaKrass0000-0002-7883-23712024-09-212024-09-212021-01-29https://boris-portal.unibe.ch/handle/20.500.12422/45383Velázquez'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.en700 - Arts700 - Arts::750 - Painting700 - Arts::760 - Graphic artsconference_item