Leonardo da Vinci’s Last Supper: Context and Sources

Painted between 1495 and 1498 (460 × 880 cm) in the Dominican refectory of Santa Maria delle Grazie in Milan, Leonardo da Vinci’s Last Supper is one of the major works of the Renaissance. It captures the moment when Christ announces: “One of you will betray me.” Leonardo unifies the scene and organises the apostles’ reactions into four groups, around a central, calm and symmetrical Christ, in a composition of remarkable expressive clarity.

The work is also one of the most fragile. Leonardo’s experimental technique on dry plaster, rather than true fresco, led to rapid deterioration. As early as 1517, Antonio de Beatis reported alterations, and in 1642 Francesco Scanelli described a state in which the figures were only partly legible.

For five centuries, successive restorations have been carried out, sometimes invasively. Several specialists, including Kenneth Clark, considered that the image visible today is largely reconstructed. The campaign completed in 1999 stabilised the whole and preserved original fragments; it also relied on early sixteenth-century copies, useful for guiding the restitution of the most damaged areas.

Under these conditions, a direct comparison between the present mural and the Head of Christ Drawing in the Accademia, Venice, is not methodologically secure. The comparison proposed here therefore relies on early copies, made when the work was still observable in a condition closer to its original state.

Art historians recognise a plausible contextual link between the Venice Drawing and the Last Supper, without being able to identify it as a direct preparatory study.