Returned to lender The Met accepts temporary loans of art both for short-term exhibitions and for long-term display in its galleries.
Last Supper
Valentin de Boulogne French
Not on view
Commissioned by the nobleman Asdrubale Mattei to decorate a gallery in his family’s Roman palace, the picture depicts one of the canonical subjects of Renaissance art. Valentin was clearly aware, through engravings, of the Last Supper’s treatment by Leonardo da Vinci and Raphael. Employing some of his favorite sitters, he explores the full range of the disciples’ reactions to Christ’s announcement that one of them will betray him; Judas, surreptitiously clinging to his money bag, is in the foreground at left. The picture, with its combination of naturalistic observation and compositional authority, was copied by the French Neoclassical painter Jacques Louis David in 1779. Asdrubale Mattei’s older brother was a major patron of Caravaggio.
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