The Last Supper

The Painting: Fully intact early Netherlandish triptychs are a rarity in American museums, many of which were formed in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries when noble family collections and church and monastery treasures in Europe began to be dispersed. As this happened, diptychs and triptychs sometimes were broken up for a variety of reasons, including by dealers who hoped to garner a higher price for individual pieces. Recognizing the scarcity of complete ensembles, J. Pierpont Morgan acquired The Last Supper triptych in 1909, bequeathing it to The Met upon his death.

The outside wings of the closed triptych show Adam and Eve in the Garden of Eden, when Eve offered the forbidden fruit from the Tree of Knowledge to Adam, thus depicting the moment of original sin. This Old Testament story of Genesis 3:1–24 is the introduction to the interior of the altarpiece where we find the New Testament scene of the Last Supper from the Gospel of Saint Luke 22:17–24. This is the episode that puts into play the events of the Passion of Christ, including the Crucifixion where Jesus sacrificed his life for the forgiveness of the sins of humankind, thereby redressing the original sin of Adam and Eve.

In this rendition, the event takes place not in a simple upper room, but in a grand refectory, decorated with garlands, a brocade hanging, and sculptures, of which the Old Testament prophet Moses stands on a plinth holding the tablets of the Ten Commandments directly above the Savior. Christ has blessed the bread and the wine that is being shared by the twelve disciples. The animated gestures of these individuals and the heated discussion among them results from Christ’s warning that one among them will betray him (Luke 22:21). Judas, the sharp-profiled, red-headed man dressed in a yellow cloak, and carrying his bag of silver in his left hand—the reward for betraying Christ—is startled by the announcement and starts to rise from his chair for an unanticipated hasty departure.[1] John, Christ’s favorite, sits to his proper right, raising both hands in astonishment at the news, and sorrowfully lowering his head toward the Lord. Christ discusses the accusation further with Peter at his left. The servant serving wine at the lower left of the scene is in contemporary dress and larger in scale than the disciples. His prominence and portrait-like physiognomy indicate that he is likely the patron who commissioned the triptych. Such participatory portraits within religious scenes were rather common at the time and signaled the desire of the patron to empathize to such an extent with Christ’s life and human suffering that he appears to take part in the actual event, experiencing the Last Supper first-hand.[2] On the lower frame edges of the three panels is the text that refers to the central panel. From Matthew 26:26 it reads: (under the left wing) CENANTIBVSILLIS, ACZEPIT; (under the central panel) IESVS PANEM BENEDIXIT, ACFREJIT, DEDITQV[E]; (under the right wing) DISCIPVLIS, SVIS, DICENS (And as they were eating, Jesus took bread, and blessed it, and brake it, and gave it to the disciples, and said . . .). However, this text is not original to the paintings but was added with the restoration of the frames in the early twentieth century.

The left and right interior wings of the triptych offer Old Testament antecedents or typological parallels for the New Testament scene of the Last Supper. The left wing represents Genesis 14: 18–24 when Melchizedek, the Priest-King of Salem, greeted Abraham with bread and wine and then blessed him as he returned from defeating King Chedorlaomer. This is understood as a prefiguration of the Eucharist, first celebrated at Christ’s Last Supper with his disciples. The right wing shows the Gathering of the Manna, the account in Exodus 16:11–36 (and in Numbers 11:7–9) in which wafers miraculously fell from heaven to feed the Israelites as they endured their forty-year wandering in the desert following the Exodus, and prior to the conquest of Canaan and their arrival in the Promised Land. This also anticipates the Eucharist and Christ’s participation in it, as reported in the Gospel of St. John 6:33: “For the bread of God is he which cometh down from heaven, and giveth life unto the world.” The joining of these typological parallels in art had earlier precedents. These two Old Testament episodes flank the Jewish Passover Feast in the Speculum Humanae Salvationis (Southern Netherlands, about 1460), a series of New Testament events related to Old Testament ones (Smeyers 1998, p. 54). The earliest known representation in a painting is Dieric Bouts’s Holy Sacrament Altarpiece of 1464 commissioned by the Corpus Christi Brotherhood of Saint Peter’s Church in Leuven (see fig. 1 above), which includes the scenes discussed above as well as two additional ones: the Jewish Passover and Elijah’s Dream.

The Attribution and Date: In addition to drawing its iconography from multiple sources, the painter of this triptych also derived inspiration from a variety of other popular visual antecedents, in particular from engravings. The Adam and Eve of the exterior wings is loosely based on Albrecht Dürer’s famous 1504 engraving that circulated widely throughout The Netherlands (The Met, 19.73.1), even before the artist’s sojourn there in 1521. An engraving of the Last Supper by the monogrammist IAM of Zwolle (fig. 2) appears to have been influential for the centerpiece of The Met triptych (Marlier 1966), including certain details such as the grand refectory with views beyond to the right and left; the foreground basket of bread and the dog gnawing on a bone; the round-backed chair at the right; the triumvirate of John, Christ, and Peter at the center of the table and their interaction with each other; and especially the profile-view of Judas and his exact position at center-right in the composition.

The flamboyant style of the triptych emphasizes storytelling that is conveyed above all by figures in exaggerated poses, decorative garb and fluttering draperies, and a high-key palette based on a variety of reds, yellows, blues, and greens. Such paintings belong to the group designated by Max J. Friedländer as the Antwerp Mannerists.[3] Although Friedländer initially sought to divide into five specific groups those working in this style in Antwerp in the early decades of the sixteenth century, the significant variations within these groups indicate additional hands not necessarily working together in the same atelier. The Master of the Von Groote Adoration, the Antwerp follower of Pseudo-Blesius, to whom The Met triptych was originally attributed by Friedländer and supported by most scholars (see References), for example, hardly represents one master.[4] The main interior portions of The Met triptych show differences from the name painting of the artist, that is, the Triptych of the Adoration of the Magi (Städelsches Kunstinstitut und Städtische Galerie, Frankfurt; fig. 3). While the name painting shows a vast open space across the three panels and a comfortable integration of the figures within it, including a logical diminution of figure scale to represent recession into space, in The Met paintings the background is minimally described, and the larger figures are all crowded into the foreground in a rather monotonous way across the picture plane. The figures of the Frankfurt triptych are more subtly painted with distinctive variations among them that enhance the lifelike narrative, while the figures of The Met triptych are for the most part exaggerated caricatures more loosely painted with considerable speed evident in their handling and technique (see Technical Notes).

Veronique Sintobin (1998, pp. 262, 264) suggested that The Met triptych itself appears to represent the collaboration of three different artists. One, she considered, was rather skillful at depicting nudes and fashioned a version of Dürer’s Adam and Eve on the outside wings. The figures on the interior of the triptych with their stiff poses and caricature-like faces would be the work of a second painter. Finally, the representation of the probable donor of the triptych, who serves wine to the disciples, necessitated the greater skills of a portraitist among those in the workshop. Although the figure is awkwardly inserted at the lower left of the centerpiece and out of scale with the other figures, the treatment of his physiognomy is the most sensitive and realistic of those in the triptych. He is clearly individualized, and yet there are no other clues to his specific identity in the painting. Perhaps this man commissioned the triptych for his family chapel or for a prestigious confraternity or brotherhood to which he belonged.

On closer examination it appears that all of the paintings—interior and exterior—were initially planned and underdrawn by the same hand. This artist laid out the composition and then considered the system of light and shade through even parallel hatching in brush and a liquid medium (see Technical Notes). Although a grayish priming obscures the underdrawing especially on the central panel, the underdrawing on the left interior wing and on the exterior wing with Adam, for example, shows the same hand at work (see Technical Notes). In paint, the exaggerated, caricature-like physiognomies of the central panel are at odds with the composed and serene figure of Adam. However, examination of the painting technique of these figures under the microscope shows the same characteristics of the brushwork employed to fashion the eyes and model the face (see Technical Notes). This artist, then, could apparently paint in a range of modes to portray various types, whether the almost androgynous John or the caricature-like, aged Peter, each flanking the figure of Christ (fig. 4).

The portrait head of the donor at the lower left in the foreground of the Last Supper seems to be the only figure that required a more accomplished hand or at least a more subtle approach—one that could be employed to satisfy the donor’s requirements for his likeness. The collaboration of specialists and the separation of tasks within one workshop helped to ensure not only a certain standard of quality control, but also streamlined manufacture at a time when market demand in Antwerp began to influence the working methods of painters.[5] Although a precise dating for the triptych remains elusive, the peak of the production of the Antwerp Mannerists, to which this triptych belongs, is around 1515–20.

Maryan W. Ainsworth 2022

[1] Barbara Welzel calls this iconographic theme the Communion of Judas (Welzel 1991).
[2] A key example of this is Dieric Bouts’s Last Supper Altarpiece in which there are several portraits perhaps of the painter and of those who commissioned the altarpiece. See Catheline Périer-d’Ieteren, Dieric Bouts, The Complete Works, Brussels, 2006, pp. 35–36, fig. 11. On participatory portraits in paintings, see L. Campbell, Renaissance Portraits, European Portrait Painting in the 14th, 15th, and 16th Centuries, New Haven, 1990, pp. 3–9; and F. Polleross, “Between Typology and Psychology: The Role of the Identification Portrait in Updating Old Testament Representations,” Artibus et Historiae 12, (1991), pp. 75–117.
[3] For a helpful critique of Friedländer’s formation of the Antwerp Mannerist groups, see Annick Born, “Antwerp Mannerism: A Fashionable Style?,” in Extravagant, A Forgotten Chapter of Antwerp painting 1500–1530, Peter van den Brink, ed., exh. cat., Koninklijk Museum voor Schone Kunsten, Antwerp and Bonnefantenmuseum, Maastricht, 2005–6, pp. 10–19, esp. pp. 14–17.
[4] On this master, see Max J. Friedländer, Early Netherlandish Painting, XI: The Antwerp Mannerists, Adriaen Ysenbrant, comments and notes by Henri Pauwels, assisted by Anne-Marie Hess, translated by Heinz Norden, Leiden, 1974, pp. 24–28, pls. 36–48; and Jochen Sander in Extravagant, A Forgotten Chapter of Antwerp painting 1500–1530, Peter van den Brink, ed., exh. cat., Koninklijk Museum voor Schone Kunsten, Antwerp and Bonnefantenmuseum, Maastricht, 2005–6, pp. 154–61.
[5] For a discussion of Antwerp Mannerist painters’ workshops, see Micha Leeflang, “Workshop Practices in Early Sixteenth-Century Antwerp Studios,” Jaarboek Koninklijk Museum voor Schone Kunsten, Antwerp (2004–5) pp. 223–73.

Support: This intact triptych is still displayed in its original, though re-surfaced, frame. The supports for the paintings were constructed from several wood planks, estimated to be oak, with the grain oriented vertically. The double-sided wings were each made from a single plank and the central panel from three planks, originally held in place with four dowels, as can be seen in the x-radiograph (see fig. 5 above). The thickness of the wings varies from 7.3 mm at the center of the left panel to 4.4 mm at its thinnest edge, and from 9 mm at the center of the right panel to 4.7 mm at its thinnest edge. At an unknown date the central panel was cradled, in preparation for which the back was minimally planed down; it now measures around 7 mm thick.

It appears that the panels were taken out of their frames at least once, likely during the treatment of the frames at The Met in the early twentieth century. However, removal is a delicate operation that requires dismantling the lower frame joins; accordingly, the panels were not unframed during the 2022 examination and dendrochronology could not be performed.

Preparation: The panels were prepared with a whitish ground followed by an additional carbon-containing priming layer, the pigmentation of which seems to vary in each scene but was not sampled. The central panel appears to have a greyish layer, which can be seen quite clearly in the infrared reflectogram (fig. 6). It seems that the left interior panel has a greyish priming layer as well, although lighter in color than that in the central panel, appearing fainter in the reflectogram. The right interior panel does not appear to have a highly pigmented priming layer. No pigmented priming was observed on the exteriors of the wings.

Examination with infrared reflectography revealed varying amounts and types of underdrawing across the five scenes (figs. 6, 7).[1] Underdrawing using a liquid medium and seemingly a brush was detected on the exteriors of the wings. The artist outlined the figures of Adam and Eve and added a good amount of neat, parallel, curving hatchmarks to their limbs. No underdrawing was detected in the serpent or the backgrounds, however, there is a significant amount of carbon-containing paint in the scenes that would obscure any underdrawing.

The underdrawing on the interiors of the left and right wings appears similar to that on the exteriors, although possibly more summary, with less hatching. The underdrawing was principally found in the figures, and very little in the backgrounds. One area on the left wing was treated slightly differently from the rest: in the kneeling Abraham’s left hand and drapery the lines are sharper and bolder relative to the rest. It appears that the artist made a change in the underdrawing and perhaps used a different tool and medium (pen and ink?) to do this. Unlike the liquid underdrawing in the wings, only drawing in a dry medium was evident in the central panel. This dry drawing is concentrated in the interior architecture. Liquid underdrawing is clearly present in the central panel, as it can be glimpsed with the naked eye in a few passages, as in the red robe of the apostle sitting with his back to the viewer near the center of the panel. It is possible that this underdrawing was done with a medium that is not detectable with infrared, however, these lines are quite similar to those in the left and right interiors; more likely the carbon-containing priming in the central panel is concealing the underdrawing in the reflectogram. The fact that the lines in a dry medium do register could indicate that this liquid underdrawing was relatively dilute, thus more easily obscured.

The reasons for the differences in the priming across the three panels could lie in the compositions themselves. The central panel is an interior scene, dominated by the dark grey stone, and so a darker priming layer may have helped the artist establish his lighting, while the exterior scenes occur outdoors, where a greyish priming layer would diminish the brighter daylight. It seems that all five compositions were underdrawn in a similar manner, using a liquid medium, even if it does not always register in the reflectograms. Only the central panel appears to have underdrawing with a dry material, likely related to the rendition of the interior architecture, underdrawn in a different stage than the rest.

Paint Layers: The scenes were painted in a pared-down, somewhat formulaic yet still quite effective approach, most readily appreciated in the faces. For example, the artist seems to have begun with a mid-tone, building up highlights with varying amounts of lead white and adding some dark tones, but apparently only using about three or four tones in total. These tones were applied rather discretely, rarely blended. In more extreme cases the planes of the faces appear like angular facets on close examination but read as quite volumetric from a distance (fig. 8). The artist made use of a warm brown paint to create facial features, contours, and wrinkles. He followed a very similar approach in each set of eyes, outlining the irises with a solid black contour and adding a final bright white highlight. The bold contour lines throughout the faces render their features legible from a distance but appear somewhat caricature-like when viewed at close range. Beyond the assorted expressions and physiognomies, the artist introduced variations into the figures by slightly altering his palette—some are quite ruddy while others are a cooler beige-brown in hue—but still relying on the same buildup of tones (figs. 9, 10).

All five compositions appear to be quite similar in handling, and were likely executed by the same hand, except for one figure in the central panel. Previous scholarship suggested that the figures of Adam and Eve on the exterior wings were painted by a different hand, but perceived differences could be due to their restoration history.[2] Only the interiors of the wings and the central panel were cleaned and restored in recent years but it is unclear if the Adam and Eve panels were cleaned since the altarpiece entered the Met’s collection in 1917.[3] The latter paintings have thick, discolored varnishes as well as uneven dark brown residue from past treatments, which alters perception of their technique. The dark varnish compresses the tonal range and conceals discrete brushstrokes, making it seem like their fleshtones were painted in a more blended manner than the figures on the interior, while the dark varnish could suggest the presence of warm, modulating glazes (figs. 11, 12). Close examination under the microscope revealed that Adam was painted in a manner akin to the figures on the interior. Eve’s fleshtones do, admittedly, appear slightly more blended than Adam’s, but this could be due to the artist’s rendering of an ideal woman; there is little to compare her to in the altarpiece as a rare female figure and the only one at this scale. Yet, comparison of the eyes of both Adam and Eve with those figures on the interior scenes is very telling, as they appear nearly identical.

In the central panel, the figure bearing the wine jug at the lower left of the central group was likely painted by a different hand. This figure stands out in the composition for being slightly out of scale with the other figures and awkwardly placed. He is close to the apostle to his right, who reaches toward the wine jug with outstretched cup, yet the two do not seem to be in the same plane. The wine-bearer is noticeably larger than the other figures in the scene, even accounting for his position closest to the front of the composition. He also seems to project forward toward the viewer in a distinct manner, perhaps because of the increased luminosity of his face. For these reasons, there has been a question of whether this figure could have been added later and by a different hand.

Technical examination and imaging did not yield evidence that the wine-bearer was not planned from the beginning. The background was painted with a reserve for his figure and while his contour slightly overlaps some finished elements, there is further painting on top of his figure, for example, the dark pink sleeve of the apostle above him was brought down over the top of his hat. The intention must have been to place some such figure in that space; the apostle extending his cup to be filled was painted from the outset and there would have been a substantial gap to his left. The larger scale and awkward positioning suggest that another artist may have made this one figure, possibly a portrait of the donor. No underdrawing was detected with the naked eye in this figure, unlike some of the others.

Differences in the paint handling, particularly in the fleshtones, are apparent on close examination of the wine-bearer’s head (fig. 13). Rather than rely on planes of varying colors and tones to create forms as noted elsewhere, this face was painted in a more blended fashion with smoother transitions from lights to darks. The artist used a good deal of white throughout the flesh, both mixed into midtones and nearly pure white at highlights. The distinctive use of lead white is clear in the x-radiograph relative to the other heads.

The paintings are in generally fair condition. There are some very small scattered losses and some minor abrasion.

Sophie Scully 2022

[1] Infrared reflectography was acquired with an OSIRIS InGaAs near-infrared camera fitted with a 6-element, 150 mm focal length f/5.6–f/45 lens; 900-1700 nm spectral response, September 2022.
[2] Sintobin, 1998, 262–64.
[3] The three interior panels only were cleaned and restored at The Met in 1998.

Inscription: Inscribed (on frame): (under left wing) CENANTIBVSILLIS, ACZEPIT; (under central panel) IESVS PANEM BENEDIXIT, ACFREJIT, DEDITQV[E]; (under right wing) DISCIPVLIS, SVIS, DICENS (And as they were eating, Jesus took bread, and blessed it, and brake it, and gave it to the disciples, and said . . . [Matthew 26:26].); (right wing, on tent in background) AVE MARIA . . .

comte de Montebello (until 1909; sold to Kleinberger); [Kleinberger, Paris and New York, 1909; sold to Morgan]; J. Pierpont Morgan, New York (1909–d. 1913; his estate, 1913–17)

Little Rock. Arkansas Arts Center. "Five Centuries of European Painting," May 16–October 26, 1963, unnumbered cat. (pp. 10–11).

Bruges. Groeninge Museum. "Primitifs flamands anonymes," June 14–September 21, 1969, no. 91.

New York. The Metropolitan Museum of Art. "From Van Eyck to Bruegel: Early Netherlandish Painting in The Metropolitan Museum of Art," September 22, 1998–February 21, 1999, no. 68.

B[ryson]. B[urroughs]. "Recent Loans." Metropolitan Museum of Art Bulletin 4 (September 1909), p. 154, ascribes the triptych to Herri Met de Bles.

Max J. Friedländer. "Die Antwerpener Manieristen von 1520." Jahrbuch der Königlich Preuszischen Kunstsammlungen 36 (1915), pp. 80–81, ill. (central panel), includes this triptych with works by the Antwerp follower of Pseudo-Blesius who painted the Adoration of the Magi in the Ertborn collection [now Koninklijk Museum, Antwerp].

Max J. Friedländer. Die altniederländische Malerei. Vol. 11, Die Antwerpener Manieristen; Adriaen Ysenbrant. Berlin, 1933, pp. 38, 120, no. 43, pl. 23 (central panel), ascribes it to the Antwerp follower of Pseudo-Blesius who painted the Adoration of the Magi in the Van Groote collection, Kitzburg [pls. 18 and 19, present location unknown].

Harry B. Wehle and Margaretta Salinger. The Metropolitan Museum of Art: A Catalogue of Early Flemish, Dutch and German Paintings. New York, 1947, pp. 129–30, ill., as the work of an Antwerp Mannerist.

Ernest Lotthé. La pensée chrétienne dans la peinture flamande et hollandaise. Lille, 1947, vol. 2, pp. 192, 337.

Josephine L. Allen and Elizabeth E. Gardner. A Concise Catalogue of the European Paintings in The Metropolitan Museum of Art. New York, 1954, p. 36.

Erik Larsen. Les primitifs flamands au Musée Metropolitain de New York. Utrecht, 1960, p. 93.

Georges Marlier. Pierre Coeck d'Alost. Brussels, 1966, p. 106, relates the iconography of our painting to that of an engraving of the Last Supper by the Monogrammist I. A. from Zwolle, from the last quarter of the 15th century (fig. 36, Albertina, Vienna).

D. Farmer. Primitifs flamands anonymes. Exh. cat., Groeninge Museum. Bruges, 1969, pp. 164–65, 167, no. 91, ill. (the triptych and central panel).

Max J. Friedländer et al. Early Netherlandish Painting. Vol. 11, The Antwerp Mannerists, Adriaen Ysenbrant. New York, 1974, pp. 25, 71, no. 43, pl. 47.

Guy Delmarcel. "Het antependium van Herkenrode, Antwerps borduurwerk uit 1528–1529." Bulletin des Musées Royaux d'Art et d'Histoire 55, no. 1 (1984), pp. 59, 71, fig. 5, publishes an antependium dated 1528 (Musées Royaux d'Art et d'Histoire, Brussels) that includes a scene of the Last Supper; notes that the scene's composition derives from altarpieces like ours and another Last Supper triptych (Musées Royaux des Beaux-Arts de Belgique, Brussels), both of which he attributes to the Master of the Groote Adoration.

Barbara Welzel. Abendmahlsaltäre vor der Reformation. PhD diss., Freie Universität, Berlin. Berlin, 1991, pp. 108, 158, no. 9, fig. 9, identifies the iconographic theme as the communion of Judas and dates the altarpiece between 1510 and 1520.

Katharine Baetjer. European Paintings in The Metropolitan Museum of Art by Artists Born Before 1865: A Summary Catalogue. New York, 1995, p. 265, ill.

Ariane van Suchtelen in Art on Wings: Celebrating the Reunification of a Triptych by Gerard David. Exh. cat., Mauritshuis, The Hague. The Hague, 1997, pp. 68–69, ill.

Véronique Sintobin in From Van Eyck to Bruegel: Early Netherlandish Painting in The Metropolitan Museum of Art. Ed. Maryan W. Ainsworth and Keith Christiansen. Exh. cat., The Metropolitan Museum of Art. New York, 1998, pp. 80, 262–65, no. 68, ill. (color), dates the altarpiece 1515–20, calling it a collaborative work in which one artist contributed the idealized figures of Adam and Eve after Dürer's 1504 engraving of the Fall of Man, another provided the stereotyped figures on the interior, and a third apparently painted the head of the man in the left foreground of the central panel, perhaps a portrait.

Maurits Smeyers in Dirk Bouts (ca. 1410–1475): Een Vlaams primitief te Leuven. Ed. Maurits Smeyers. Exh. cat., Sint-Pieterskerk en Predikherenkerk, Leuven. Louvain, 1998, p. 58 n. 63, refers to this picture, with its scenes of Abraham and Melchizedek, as well as the Gathering of Manna, as relying on antecedents such as Dirk Bouts "Last Supper Altarpiece" (Sint-Pieterskerk, Leuven).