The Small Last Supper

This is the Last Supper from the large altarpiece that hangs nearby, repeated on a much smaller canvas and with some changes. Why Champaigne painted it is still argued over. Nicolas Sainte Fare Garnot, a specialist in the painter, sees it as the modello, the finished study that showed how the big picture would look. Lorenzo Pericolo, another Champaigne scholar, thinks its modest size and its history point to a private patron who wanted a version of his own. The Louvre leans towards Pericolo, which puts this picture before 1652. Its known history begins in the collection of the Prince de Conti, a prince of the royal blood. At the Conti sale in 1777 it was bought for Louis XVI, and by 1785 it was at the Louvre. Not long after the museum opened, it was sent on deposit to the Senate, in the Luxembourg Palace, and stayed there until 1871. The museum judges its quality high enough to keep it under Champaigne's own name.