Last Supper

The altarpiece in question began the Eucharistic cycle with the last meal that Jesus Christ took with his apostles in Jerusalem. Because of its great liturgical and mystical significance, it has become known as the Last Supper.
The interpretive freedoms that were granted to artists with the tacit consent of the ecclesiastic authorities lay behind the introduction of a number of iconographic variants.
An engraving probably served as the inspiration for this composition and for some of the figures at the Last Supper, who display clear affinities with the work depicting the same theme that formed part of the retable of the high altar of the church of the Convento de São Francisco in Évora. This work was produced by the workshop directed by the Luso-Flemish painter Francisco Henrique between 1508 and 1511.
In this panel, Christ and the apostles gather together around a circular table, on which we can see, besides the customary Eucharistic elements (the bread and wine), a dish with a bird, instead of the lamb from the Jewish tradition that is also represented with some frequency.
The anatomical mistakes, especially the evident incapacity to represent the figures depicted from behind and to afford the carnations the correct structure and modelling, the poverty of the background – a simple black curtain flanked by two windows, one of which does not have a shutter – once again demonstrate the unequal talents of the artists who worked on this commission. Despite these technical shortcomings, the lack of any weight and substance in the bodies of the figures, the extraordinary modelling of Judas’ cloak, symbolically represented in an intense yellow colour, is perfectly clear, as is the technical rigour demonstrated in the representation of certain details (the light on the chalice, the wine glasses and their reflection on the white tablecloth), indicating an essential desire for realism.