Artwork Page for The Last Supper

Details / Information for The Last Supper

Series Title: The Large Passion

The Last Supper

1510

Albrecht Dürer

(German, 1471–1528)
Culture
Germany
Medium
woodcut
Measurements
Sheet: 40 x 28.8 cm (15 3/4 x 11 5/16 in.)
Credit Line
Gift of The Print Club of Cleveland in memory of Ralph King 1926.112
Catalogue raisonné
Meder 114
Public Domain
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Location
Not on view
Print
?

Did You Know?

This print depicts the apostles dining on a humble but sturdy refectory table. Dürer included the date of the print on the middle trestle, a location often reserved for heraldry on more lavish tables.

Description

The Christian sacrament of the Eucharist is traced to the Last Supper, when Christ said of the wine, “This is my blood.” For artists, the scene was full of both symbolic and narrative potential. Albrecht Dürer created a compact, vertical composition that focuses on the closeness of the disciples and the moment, wine flowing, when Christ reveals his fate. Dürer’s ingenious woodcut technique includes the creation of a halo made from parallel lines around Christ’s head that continue outward to define the shadow of the vaulted room.
A vertically oriented print in dense black-inked fine lines depicts thirteen men gathered at a long table beneath a vaulted ceiling. Centrally, a figure with rays of light radiating from his head leans forward. In the foreground, a man on the left pours liquid into a cup, while another sits with his back turned on the right. Fine hatching shades the interior, and a circular opening appears in the ceiling above.

The Last Supper

1510

Albrecht Dürer

(German, 1471–1528)
Germany

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