Mural painting with the scene of the Saint Supper

This fragment of mural painting with the scene of the Last Supper decorated originally the inferior part of the chapel of Saint Catherine in the Cathedral church of Saint Mary in the town of La Seu d'Urgell and entered to the Museum in 1933. The representation of the Saint Supper is organised along a rectangular table with the apostles behind, except Judas Iscariot, the betrayer, that is represented at the front and is seen from the side. In the middle of the composition we find the figure of the Christ blessing and offering the bread to Judas, and the apostle John, on Jesus' right side, sleeping peacefully with the eyes closed leaning on the table. This Saint Supper belongs to a group, today dispersed, formed by the scene of the martyrdom of Saint Catherine, preserved at the Foundation Abegg-Stiftung in Riggisberg, Switzerland, and for the scene of the dispute and arrest of the saint, preserved at the MNAC. The pictorial palette of the painter is based in land colours dissolved as in the lime as in the tempera, reinforced with touches of intense red obtained from the cinnabar that helps to model the folds of the clothes of many characters. The representation of the Saint Supper is a clear exponent of transition between two styles: we can appreciate some characteristic of the first linear gothic, especially in the lines that define the outline of the bodies and in the increase of the dynamism of the figures and, for the other, it still preserves traits of the last Romanesque tradition, especially those deriving from the renewal of the art of the 1200 such as the facial types diversified, the lights and the shadows to the faces or the small transparencies of the dresses.