The Last Supper

In 1805 the Bavarian crown prince Ludwig, the future King Ludwig I and still a teenager, gave this small panel to the Bavarian collections. At the time many collectors still looked past gold-ground pictures from before Raphael, treating them as curiosities of a cruder age. The panel is less than half a metre across. It was once one of seven scenes from the life of Christ, painted side by side on a single long board for an altar, and two other scenes from that board hang beside it in Munich. The apostles crowd around the table. Judas, shown without a halo, takes a piece of bread from Christ's hand, and John, the youngest disciple, has fallen asleep against Christ's chest.