The institution of the Eucharist

There is a small bureaucratic story behind this one. To become a full member of Venice's painting academy you owed it a reception piece, a picture handed to the institution to prove your worth. Giandomenico had been admitted years earlier and simply never delivered his, until 1778, when the academy's president formally called him to account and had the canvas issued to him that April. This is what he painted to settle the debt. The scene is the moment at the last Passover supper when Christ blesses the bread and wine and gives them to the apostles, the act Christians call the institution of the Eucharist. He finished it in 1778 or 1779, late in a long career, and it stayed with the academy whose collection became this museum.