The Last Supper

Juan de Juanes · PD

The Last Supper


Details

Year
1555
Medium
oil paint
Type
painting
Dimensions
116 × 191 cm

The story

Juan de Juanes built this Last Supper for the high altar of a church in Valencia around 1555, and he clearly knew Leonardo's version in Milan, with its long table and apostles reacting in clusters. But look at the gold cup Christ is raising. Juanes painted it from a specific object: the agate chalice kept in Valencia Cathedral, revered then and now as the actual cup of the Last Supper. Every apostle wears a halo lettered with his name, except one. Judas sits apart at the front in a yellow robe, the colour of envy, clutching his little bag of coins, and his name is written not on a halo but on the bench beneath him.