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The Last Supper
Leonardo da Vinci · Renaissance & Mannerism
- Artist
- Leonardo da Vinci (1452–1519)
- Date
- c. 1495–1498
- Dimensions
- 460 x 880 cm
- Medium
- Tempera and oil on plaster
- Location
- Santa Maria delle Grazie, Milan, Italy
Leonardo’s Last Supper covers the end wall of the monks’ dining hall at Santa Maria delle Grazie in Milan. It captures the moment Christ announces that one of the twelve apostles at the table will betray him.
A closer look
The apostles react in four lively groups of three, recoiling, protesting or asking who the traitor might be, while Christ sits calm and isolated at the centre, framed by the window behind him. All the lines of the room’s perspective lead to his head. Instead of true fresco, which must be painted quickly on wet plaster, Leonardo experimented with paint on dry wall so he could work slowly. The experiment failed: the paint began flaking within his lifetime.
History of the painting
Because Leonardo painted on dry plaster instead of using true fresco, the image began to flake within his lifetime, and the following centuries added damage: a door was cut through the wall below Christ's feet in 1652, French troops used the refectory as a stable in the 1790s, and in August 1943 an Allied bomb destroyed the roof and one wall of the room. The mural survived behind a protective wall of sandbags.
The most recent restoration, led by Pinin Brambilla Barcilon, lasted from 1978 to 1999, removing centuries of dirt and earlier repainting to recover what remains of Leonardo's own work. To protect it, visitors now enter in small groups through climate-controlled chambers and may stay only about fifteen minutes.
