1 / 1

download image
This image is in the public domain. You can copy, modify and distribute this image, even for commercial purposes. Learn more about our image policies.

A long, rectangular dining table is surrounded by thirteen people in this horizontal painting. The skin of all the people, some of their clothing, and the tabletop are painted golden yellow. Touches of aquamarine blue, salmon pink, and rust red appear in some clothing, and the scene is set against a nearly black background. Across from us at the center of the table, a radiating, gold starburst surrounds the head and shoulders of a man, Jesus, with shoulder-length blond hair and beard. He looks at or toward us with dark eyes as he holds his hands up, palms facing out, at his chest. He wears a champagne-white robe and reclines with his legs extended to our left as he rests his opposite elbow on what could be a cushion or rolled-up blanket. To our right, a second person mirrors Jesus’s reclining position but with wrists crossed over the chest and turning to look toward Jesus. That person wears a long teal-blue garment and has smooth cheeks and long blond hair. Another bearded man to our left, near the back corner of the table, leans away from Jesus with hands held up as if in prayer. Three people lounge or sit on each of the short sides of the table to our left and right, and four recline on the side closest to us. Some have beards and others are cleanshaven, and some have short hair while others have long locks. Most of them look toward Jesus while two bend low to the table in prayer. One man, in the lower right, wears brick red and turns his back on the table as he counts or touches coins in a sack. The long table is set with goblets and plates of food. The artist signed the work with his initials in the lower left corner: “WB inv.”

William Blake

The Last Supper, 1799

Not on View

Medium

tempera on canvas

Dimensions

overall: 30.5 x 48.2 cm (12 x 19 in.)

framed: 38.1 x 55.3 x 3.8 cm (15 x 21 3/4 x 1 1/2 in.)

Credit Line

Rosenwald Collection

Accession Number

1954.13.1

Artists / Makers

William Blake (artist) British, 1757 - 1827

Image Use

This image is in the public domain.
Read our full Open Access policy for images .

Inscription

lower left in monogram: WB inv.

Provenance

Painted for Thomas Butts [1757-1845];[1] by descent to Thomas Butts, Jr. (sale, Messrs. Foster, London, 29 June 1853, no. 87), bought by J.C. Strange, Highgate. (B.F. Stevens and Brown), London. Graham Robertson [1866-1948]; (his sale, Christie, Manson & Woods, London, 22 July 1949, No. 102), bought by the William Blake Trust, whose Trustees sold it 1951 to Lessing J. Rosenwald, Philadelphia; gift to NGA, 1954.

[1] This is one of over 135 illustrations to the Bible painted for Thomas Butts, Blake's most important patron.

Associated Names

Blake Trust, William, The
Butts, Jr., Thomas
Butts, Thomas
Christie, Manson & Woods, Ltd.
Foster, Messrs.
Robertson, Graham
Rosenwald, Lessing Julius
Sale, London
Stevens and Brown, B.F.
Strange, J.C.

Exhibition History

1799: Royal Academy, London, 1799, no. 154.

1951: The Tempera Paintings of William Blake, Arts Council of Great Britain, London, 1951, no. 29, pl. 8.

1957: The Art of William Blake, National Gallery of Art, Washington, D.C., 1957, no. 1.

1982: William Blake: His Art and Times, Yale Center for British Art, New Haven; Art Gallery of Ontario, Toronto. London, 1982: 38, fig. 22.

2001: Il Genio e le Passioni. Leonardo e il Cenacolo. Precedenti, innovazioni, riflessi di un capolavoro, Palazzo Reale, Milan, 2001, no. 141, repro.

Technical Summary

The exceptionally fine canvas is plain woven; it has been lined. The ground is white, thinly applied. The painting is executed in glue tempera (characteristic of Blake's technique), applied in thin, multiple glazes in the figures and in thicker, opaque layers in the dark background; the drapery and details of the figures are applied in stiff, textured paint modified by thin overlying glazes. The painting is very fragile. The canvas is dessicated and brittle; the lining is dry and stained on the reverse; there is minute cleavage throughout the ground and paint layers, caused by contraction of the brittle glue medium. The much darkened varnish was removed and flaking paint fixed with wax when the painting was restored, between 1949 and 1951 for the William Blake Trust. There is a considerable amount of overpaint throughout, applied with minute brushstrokes. The slightly toned natural resin varnish has discolored yellow to a moderate degree.

Bibliography

1863: Rossetti, William. Annotated Catalogue. In Gilchrist, Alexander. Life of William Blake, "Pictor Ignotus." 2 vols. London and Cambridge, 1863: 2:no. 23.

1957: Keynes, Sir Geoffrey. William Blake's Illustrations to the Bible. Clairvaux (The Trianon Press), 1957: xiii, no. 132, repro. pl. vi, color repro.

1965: Summary Catalogue of European Paintings and Sculpture. National Gallery of Art, Washington, 1965: 15.

1968: National Gallery of Art. European Paintings and Sculpture, Illustrations. Washington, 1968: 8, repro.

1975: European Paintings: An Illustrated Summary Catalogue. National Gallery of Art, Washington, 1975: 30, repro.

1976: Rosenwald, Lessing J. Recollections of a Collector. New York, 1976: 100.

1977: Bindman, David. Blake as an Artist. Oxford, 1977: 124, 127, 128.

1978: Paley, Morton D. William Blake. Oxford, 1978: 55, pl. 80.

1981: Butlin, Martin. The Paintings and Drawings of William Blake. New Haven: Yale University Press, 1981.

1982: Bindman, David. William Blake: His Art and Times. Exh. cat. Yale Center for British Art, New Haven; Art Gallery of Ontario, Toronto. London, 1982: 38, fig. 22.

1985: European Paintings: An Illustrated Catalogue. National Gallery of Art, Washington, 1985: 49, repro.

1992: Hayes, John. British Paintings of the Sixteenth through Nineteenth Centuries. The Collections of the National Gallery of Art Systematic Catalogue. Washington, D.C., 1992: 14-17, repro. 15.