The Sacrament of the Last Supper

1955

Salvador Dalí

Artist, Spanish, 1904 - 1989

One transparent, ghostly man sits and twelve more people wearing long robes bow over a long table set under a floating, surreal structure in front of a watery landscape in this horizontal painting. The people all have light or tanned skin. At the center of the table opposite us, a man, Jesus, sits facing us with his left hand, to our right, touching his chest and his other hand raised with the thumb and index finger pointing upward. He has long, blond hair, dark brows, and his square jaw is cleanshaven. A piece of white drapery wraps over one shoulder so half of his chest is bare. His body is outlined with light but is transparent so we see the landscape beyond the table through him. Three men are spaced evenly, shoulder by shoulder, to each side of Jesus on the far side of the table. A pair of men sit at each narrow end, and two men sit on our side of the table, one to either side of Jesus. The men on our side kneel at the table, so presumably the rest do as well. They bow their heads low over their praying hands, which rest on the table. Ten of the men wear silvery-white robes. One man to our left wears a lapis-blue cloak and one to our right wears bumblebee yellow. Eight of the men have dark hair, three have gray hair, and one is blond. The table spans the width of the painting, with the short ends to each side receding sharply back in space so there is room for the men there. The parchment-white cloth covering the table is creased deeply where it had been folded. Two pieces of a round loaf of bread, torn in half, are to either side of Jesus near the edge of the table closer to us. A glass tumbler with red liquid sits near Jesus. The scene is lit from the landscape beyond the table, so the people are slightly backlit, and the shadows and the red glow from the glass extend toward us. A structure above the table is suggested by a floating form of interlocking, golden shapes, like an oversized honeycomb, to create a dome-like space. Coffee-brown areas at the upper corners of the painting suggest a ceiling, but the structure fades to transparency as it nears the table. A shimmering body of periwinkle-blue water stretches from behind the table to a row of low, gossamer-white, rocky mountains along the horizon in the distance. One empty, golden yellow rowboat floats in the water, seen past Jesus's left elbow, and a second, indigo-blue boat has been pulled onto a sandy shore to our left. The sky above is topaz blue around a warm, yellow glow emanating from Jesus. A few taupe and cream-white clouds float across the sky. The artist signed the painting in dark brown on the tablecloth in the lower right: “Gala Salvador Dali 1955.”
This object’s media is not available for download. Contact us about image usage.

Its Christian subject matter, simplicity of organization, and lack of shock value separate The Sacrament of the Last Supper from most of Salvador Dalí’s other works. Dalí’s reputation from the late 1920s to the mid-1940s was founded on his surrealist manner and use of Freudian dream imagery. This tableau of 1955 is both religious and realistic: the background accurately portrays the view from Dalí’s home on the Catalan coast of northeastern Spain. Although the rugged cliffs and eroded boulders of his native Catalonia had inspired many of the fantastic forms in his earlier works, here Dalí used the craggy bay of Port Lligat as a straightforward backdrop.

During the late 1940s, Dalí’s return to Christian imagery and traditional values was influenced by three factors: the devastating effects of the Spanish Civil War and World War II, his reawakened interest in classical art, and his reappraisal of Freud’s psychological principles after meeting the aging psychoanalyst in 1938. One classic derivation cited by Dalí in connection with his painting was Zurbarán, a seventeenth-century Spanish old master. The tousled hair of the praying figures, the kneeling postures, and the brilliant whites of their cloaks evoke Zurbarán’s precise, enamel-like handling of paint.

The Italian High Renaissance of the early 1500s was another major source for Dalí’s new classicism. As in the harmonious presentation of Renaissance schemes, Dalí’s composition is clearly divided: foreground action and background scenery. The placement of men around the table is symmetrical, the same figure repeated in perfect mirror image on both sides of Christ. Moreover, the entire nine-foot-long picture is constructed according to complex mathematical ratios devised by Renaissance scientists and such ancient Greek philosophers as Pythagoras.

Dalí explained the reliance upon this elaborate geometric patterning just after completing nine months of work on the picture:

I wanted to materialize the maximum of luminous and Pythagorean instantaneousness based on the celestial communion of the number twelve: twelve hours of the day—twelve months of the year—the twelve pentagons of the dodecahedron—twelve signs of the zodiac around the sun—the twelve apostles around Christ.

Thus, The Sacrament of the Last Supper is not an attempt to recreate the meal but a symbolic presentation of the Eucharistic ritual. Rather than specific apostles, the men at the table are idealized participants. The strange enclosure—part earthly, part celestial—is not the “large upper room” of the Bible, but an abstract concept embodied by the dodecahedron.

Just as the surrounding cupola appears only partially real, Christ is not corporeally present because his body is partially transparent. The more tangible allusion to Jesus’ physical presence is the symbolic bread and wine. This ethereal, disembodied torso above him is more youthful than the standard conception of the Creator, who is typically portrayed as an aged patriarch. The wide, outstretched arms might represent the resurrected Christ, but the nail holes are absent from the hands, and the wound does not appear on his side. Perhaps this figure embodies Dalí’s idea that “heaven is to be found exactly in the center of the bosom of the man who has faith!”

Dalí’s The Sacrament of the Last Supper was given to the National Gallery by one of its greatest benefactors, Chester Dale, who donated more than three hundred works of art to the museum. Dale reputedly suggested the subject matter, and he purchased Dalí’s self-proclaimed masterpiece as soon as it was finished. He then sent it to the National Gallery, where it was placed on public view the day before Easter in 1956. As Dale put it, “This is a picture for all time. It’s too important to keep for a few.” Dale and Dalí both attended the special preview, and more than seven thousand visitors flocked to the museum to see the painting the first day it was displayed.

The friendship between artist and collector was an enduring one. Dalí and his wife, Gala, were frequent guests at the Dale’s apartment, while Dale and his second wife, Mary, visited Dalí at his home in Spain. Dale pronounced Dalí “one of the greatest artists of our day,” and Dalí held the collector in equally high regard. Upon learning of Dale’s death in December 1962, Dalí mourned the passing of the man he described as “a great patron of the arts,” whom he compared to those of the Renaissance.

On View

West Building Ground Floor, Fourth Street Hallway

Artwork overview

  • Medium

    oil on canvas

  • Credit Line

    Chester Dale Collection

  • Dimensions

    overall: 166.7 x 267 cm (65 5/8 x 105 1/8 in.)
    framed: 202.6 x 302 cm (79 3/4 x 118 7/8 in.)

  • Accession

    1963.10.115

Artwork history & notes

Provenance

Purchased February 1956 from the artist through (Carstairs Gallery, New York) by Chester Dale [1883-1962], New York; gift 1963 to NGA.

Associated Names

Exhibition History

1956

  • The Sacrament of the Last Supper by Salvador Dali, National Gallery of Art, Washington, D.C., 1956.

1965

  • The Chester Dale Bequest, National Gallery of Art, Washington, D.C., 1965, unnumbered checklist.

Bibliography

1956

  • Time (19 November 1956): 46.

  • "'Greatest Religious Painting' Of Present Day Is Purchased By Chester Dale Of Resort." Palm Beach Daily News (27 January 1956): 1.

  • "'Sacrament of Last Supper' Will Be Shown to the Public." Palm Beach Daily News (25 March 1956): 13, repro.

  • "Dale Buys Dali Canvas." New York Journal-American (27 January 1956): 1.

  • "Dali's 'Last Supper' His As 'Junk' by Theologian." The Sunday Star (4 November 1956): A-1, repro. A-35.

  • "Dali's 'Last Supper' in U.S. Gallery." New York Herald Tribune (23 March 1956): repro.

  • "Dali's 'Last Supper' to Have Preview in Capital." New York Journal-American (22 March 1956): 3, repro.

  • "Dali's 'Last Supper' Will Be Shown Here." The Washington Daily News (22 March 1956): repro.

  • "Dali's Latest On View at National Gallery March 31." The Evening Star (22 March 1956): A33, repro.

  • "Dali's Place in Religious Art." Christianity Today (10 December 1956): 26-27, 34.

  • "Salvador Dali. His most recent major work." Apollo 63 (May 1956): 143.

  • Bruner, Louise. "Dali Really An Artist For All His Cutting Up." Toledo, Ohio Blade (5 August 1956): 5, repro.

  • Portner, Leslie Judd. "Art in Washington. National Unveils Dali Painting." The Washington Post and Times Herald (1 April 1956): E7, repro.

  • White, Jean. "Gallery Puts on Exhibit Its First Dali Painting." The Washington Post and Times Herald (1 April 1956): A15.

1957

  • Wagner, Charles A. "460-Year Variation on a Sacred Theme." Sunday Mirror Magazine (14 April 1957): 10-11, repro.

1958

  • "Sacrament of the Last Supper." The Commercial-Mail (3 April 1958): 1, repro. [newspaper from Columbia City, Indiana].

  • Hellman, Geoffrey T. "Custodian." The New Yorker (25 October 1958): 77.

  • Morse, A. Reynolds. Dali: A Study of His Life and Work. Greenwich, Connecticut, 1958: repro.

  • S., R.U. "Dali's Masterpiece? An Interpretation." Findings (March 1958): 7, repro.

1959

  • [author name illegible]. "I've been thinking..." The New York Ave-news (23 March 1959): 11.

1960

  • Twentieth Century French Paintings from the Chester Dale Collection. National Gallery of Art, Washington, D.C., 1960 (2nd ed.): 19, repro.

1965

  • Twentieth Century French Paintings & Sculpture of the French School in the Chester Dale Collection. National Gallery of Art, Washington, 1965 (rev. ed.): 18, repro.

  • Summary Catalogue of European Paintings and Sculpture. National Gallery of Art, Washington, 1965: 36.

1966

  • Mills, John FitzMaurice. "Art Forum." The Irish Times (11 February 1966): repro.

  • Walton, William. "Parnassus on Potomac." Art News 65 (March 1966): 37, repro. 39.

1968

  • National Gallery of Art. European Paintings and Sculpture, Illustrations. Washington, 1968: 29, repro.

1973

  • Morse, Albert Reynolds. Salvador Dali: A Guide to His Works in Public Museums. Cleveland, 1973: 50, repro.

1975

  • European Paintings: An Illustrated Summary Catalogue. National Gallery of Art, Washington, 1975: 90, repro.

1976

  • Descharnes, Robert. Salvador Dali. New York, 1976: 46, 68.

1985

  • European Paintings: An Illustrated Catalogue. National Gallery of Art, Washington, 1985: 112, repro.

1988

  • Wheeler, Marion, ed. His Face--Images of Christ in Art: Selections from the King James Version of the Bible. New York, 1988: no. 69, repro.

1991

  • Kopper, Philip. America's National Gallery of Art: A Gift to the Nation. New York, 1991: 248, 249, color repro.

1992

  • Etherington-Smith, Meredith. Dali. London, 1992: 397, 411.

1993

  • Descharnes, Robert and Gilles Néret. Salvador Dalí 1904-1989: L'oeuvre peint. 2 vols. Cologne, 1993: 2:no. 1098, repro.

1994

  • Hasman, Melvin. Spiritual Life in the Good Ol' USA: Story-Essays on Popular Culture and Christianity. La Mesa, California and Mansfield, Ohio, 1994: 89-91, repro.

1995

  • Harris, Stephen L. The New Testament. A Student's Introduction. 2nd ed. Mountain View, 1995: 8, repro.

  • Seerveld, Calvin. A Christian Critique of Art and Literature. Sioux Center, Iowa, 1995: 51-52, fig. 9.

1996

  • Pelfrey, Robert. Art and Mass Media. New York, 1985. Reprint, Dubuque, Iowa, 1996: 244-245, fig. 9.20.

1997

  • Radford, Robert. Dali. London, 1997: 244-246, fig. 157.

1998

  • Kuntz, Paul Grimley and Lee Braver. Ascent/Descent." Encyclopedia of Comparative Iconography: Themes Depicted in Works of Art, ed. Helene E. Roberts. 2 vols. Chicago and London, 1998: 1:77, 80.

  • Pennanen, Valerie Hutchinson. "Communion." In Encyclopedia of Comparative Iconography: Themes Depicted in Works of Art, ed. Helene E. Roberts. 2 vol. Chicago and London, 1998: 1:186, 188.

2001

  • Trescott, Jacqueline. "The Accessible Surrealist. Dali Work Can Now Be Viewed by Wheelchair Users." The Washington Post (22 November 2001): C1, C8, repro.

2003

  • Cable, Jacqueline. "Dali's 'Last Supper' - isolated but still captivating at the National Gallery." Catholic Standard (17 April 2003): 17-18, 21.

Inscriptions

lower right on tablecloth: Gala Salvador Dali / 1955

Wikidata ID

Q30521

You may be interested in

Loading Results