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Seen through a wide, shallow, ornamental, stone arch, seventeen light-skinned people and a dog gather around or near a long banquet table set with plates of food in this horizontal painting. The table angles away from us so the short, right side is closest to us in the darkened room, which is lined along the far wall with shallow columns and capitals. To our left, an arched doorway in the room opens to a view of a stone structure and a sliver of blue sky. A gleaming, gold candelabra with curving arms hangs over the table from a coffered, possibly wooden ceiling. The table is covered with a white cloth. Men crowd around the short ends and the long side of the table opposite us. In pairs and trios, the men converse or look toward a man with light radiating from the top and sides of his head, at the center of the far side of the table. That bearded man, Jesus, has long brown hair and points his index finger upward with his right hand, on our left. The other men at the table wear robes and tunics in sage green, tan, brown, or slate blue. A portly man behind Jesus stands with a cloth draped over one forearm and his other hand on his hip, looking down at the table. Another cleanshaven man stands holding a large platter at the far corner of the table, and two people, perhaps a man and woman, appear to be walking away from the table but look back over their shoulders to our left. On the long side of the table, closer to us, a man to our left, balding with a long gray beard, sits on a narrow, bench-like seat and twists to pick up a jug from a large basin on the floor. The final man stands near an overturned seat as he turns his back on the table. He gestures forward, to our left, with one hand as he looks back over his other shoulder. A white dog with brown spots chews on a bone near the overturned seat. The highly decorated wide archway through which we see the scene seems to be carved from pale, fog-gray stone with scrolling moldings and capitals. The arch has a shield-like decoration at the top center, and is flanked by sculpted people in the upper corners. Two larger golden statues of robed women stand on floating plinths to either side of the arch. The woman to our left holds flaming orbs and the other holds a yoke across her shoulders. Though the painting seems rather illusionistic from afar, closer examination shows that it is sketchily painted throughout.

Sebastiano Ricci

The Last Supper, 1713/1714

West Building, Main Floor - Gallery 30

Medium

oil on canvas

Dimensions

overall: 67 x 104 cm (26 3/8 x 40 15/16 in.)

framed: 85.7 x 122.6 x 8.6 cm (33 3/4 x 48 1/4 x 3 3/8 in.)

Credit Line

Samuel H. Kress Collection

Accession Number

1943.4.32

Artists / Makers

Sebastiano Ricci (artist) Venetian, 1659 - 1734

Image Use

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Provenance

Possibly the Manfrin collection, Palazzo Venier, Venice.[1] (Count Alessandro Contini Bonacossi, Florence), by 1937; purchased 1939 by the Samuel H. Kress Foundation, New York;[2] gift 1943 to NGA.

[1] Fern Rusk Shapley, Catalogue of Italian Paintings, 2 vols., Washington, D.C., 1979: 1:400, listed only "Palazzo Venier," while Jeffery Daniels, Sebastiano Ricci, Hove, 1976: 153, gives "Venice, Palazzo Venier, Manfrin." Neither offers any documentation. The Palazzo Priuli-Venier was purchased in 1787 by Count Girolamo Manfrin [d. 1801], a wealthy tobacco producer, who installed his art collection there. The painting does not appear in the Catalogo dei quadri esistenti nella Galleria Manfrin in Venezia, Venice, 1856, or in the subsequent sales of Manfrin's daughter Giovanna Plattis (Sambon, Venice, 24-25 May 1870) or granddaughter Lina Plattis-Sardegna (Hôtel Drouot, Paris, 13-14 May 1897). On the collection's history, see the prefaces to the sale catalogues and Giuseppe Tassini, Alcuni palazzi di venezia storicamente illustrata con annotazioni, Venice, 1879, 191-192. Neither Tassini nor other nineteenth-century guidebooks mention significant art collections in the other Venier palaces.

[2] According to notations in the Kress records, NGA curatorial files. Expert opinions by Roberto Longhi, William Suida, and Giuseppe Fiocco on the back of photographs from the Kress files, evidently prepared for Contini, are dated Florence, 1937. See also The Kress Collection Digital Archive, https://kress.nga.gov/Detail/objects/2222.

Associated Names

Contini Bonacossi, Alessandro, Count
Kress Foundation, Samuel H.
Manfrin Collection

Exhibition History

1989: Sebastiano Ricci, Villa Manin di Passariano, Udine, 1989, no. 37, color repro. (cat. by Aldo Rizzi).

1991: Venedigs Ruhm im Norden, Forum des Landesmuseums Hannover, Hannover; Kunstmuseum Düsseldorf im Ehrenhof, Düsseldorf, 1991-1992, no. 68, repro.

2009: Venice in Canaletto's Age, The John and Mable Ringling Museum of Art, Sarasota; Memphis Brooks Museum of Art, 2009-2010, no catalogue.

Technical Summary

The support is a loosely woven, medium-weight, plain-weave fabric. The moderately thick ground is white. Infrared reflectography reveals that the architectural surround overlaps the figure composition, partially obscuring the figure exiting at the left and completely hiding a seated figure at the right. Minor pentimenti, such as small changes in the hand on the left side of the table and in the right contour of Judas' right elbow, are also revealed by infrared reflectography. The composition inside the frame was blocked in with opaque, fluid paint in broad, flat areas. Slightly more full-bodied paint was applied over this underlayer for details, ornamentation, and architectural elements. Daubs of somewhat pastose paint, quickly and surely applied, define the features, musculature, and clothing. The most prominent are daubs of white that constitute the brightest highlights. The application of the darker valued colors in thin layers or glazes contrasts with the thicker application of the lighter valued colors.

The presence of cusping, most pronounced at the top and bottom, suggests that while the tacking margins have been removed, the composition has not been cropped. Inpainting over the scattered abrasions and losses, most concentrated at the edges, has become discolored. The more severe damages in the lower-left volute and at the forward corner of the table may have resulted from tears in the original support. The varnish is moderately thick, but clear. The painting was relined, discolored varnish was removed, and the painting was restored by Stephen Pichetto in 1940.

Bibliography

1941: Preliminary Catalogue of Paintings and Sculpture. National Gallery of Art, Washington, 1941: 169, no. 533.

1942: Book of Illustrations. National Gallery of Art, Washington, 1942: 250, repro. 176.

1945: Paintings and Sculpture from the Kress Collection. National Gallery of Art, Washington, 1945 (reprinted 1947, 1949): 140, repro.

1950: Osti, Ornella. "Sebastiano Ricci in Inghilterra." Commentari 2 (1950): 123, n. 1.

1952: Pallucchini, Rodolfo. "Studi Ricceschi I, Contributo a Sebastiano." Arte Veneta 6 (1952): 77-78, repro.

1954: Watson, Francis J. B. "English Villas and Venetian Decorators." Journal of the Royal Society of the Institute of British Architects 61 (1954): 174, repro.

1957: Ghidiglia Quintavalle, Augusta. "Premesse giovanile di Sebastiano Ricci." Rivista archeologica, 1956-1957: 85, fig. 19 (reprinted in San Secondo: Arte storia attualità. Parma, 1970.

1957: Millar, Oliver, and Margaret Whinney. English Art 1625-1714. The Oxford History of English Art 8. Oxford, 1957: 310, pl. 82.

1959: Paintings and Sculpture from the Samuel H. Kress Collection. National Gallery of Art, Washington, 1959: 230, repro.

1962: Croft-Murrary, Edward. Decorative Painting in England 1587-1837. 2 vols. London, 1962; Feltham, 1970: 2:15, 266.

1964: Garas, Klára. "New Documents Concerning Sebastiano Ricci." The Burlington Magazine 106 (1964): 131.

1964: Martini, Egidio. La pittura veneziana del settecento. Venice, 1964: 161, n. 46.

1965: Summary Catalogue of European Paintings and Sculpture. National Gallery of Art, Washington, 1965: 114.

1968: National Gallery of Art. European Paintings and Sculpture, Illustrations. Washington, 1968: 102, repro.

1969: Zampetti, Pietro. Dal Ricci al Tiepolo. Exh. cat. Palazzo Ducale, Venice, 1969: 28.

1972: Fredericksen, Burton B., and Federico Zeri. Census of Pre-Nineteenth Century Italian Paintings in North American Public Collections. Cambridge, Mass., 1972: 175.

1973: D'Arcais, Francesca. "I complessi decorativi fiorentini di Sebastiano Ricci III." Saggi e Memorie di Storia dell'Arte 12 (1973): 10-11, 13, fig. 11.

1973: Shapley, Fern Rusk. Paintings from the Samuel H. Kress Collection: Italian Schools, XVI-XVIII Century. London, 1973: 127-128, fig. 250.

1974: Simon, John. English Baroque Sketches. Exh. cat. Marble Hill House, Twickenham. London, 1974: unpaginated, no. 71.

1975: European Paintings: An Illustrated Summary Catalogue. National Gallery of Art, Washington, 1975: 306, repro.

1976: Daniels, Jeffery. L'opera completa di Sebastiano Ricci. Milan, 1976: 118, no. 325, repro.

1976: Daniels, Jeffery. Sebastiano Ricci. Hove, 1976: 40, 117, 153, no. 530, fig. 122.

1976: Daniels, Jeffery. "Sebastiano Ricci in England." Atti del Congresso internazionale di studi su Sebastiano Ricci e il suo tempo. Milan, 1976: 72, fig. 55.

1976: Pilo, Giuseppe Maria. Sebastiano Ricci e la pittura veneziana del settecento. Pordenone, 1976: 98 n. 156, 99 n. 159.

1978: Works by Sebastiano Ricci from British Collections. Exh. cat. P. & D. Colnaghi & Co., Ltd., London, 1978: unpaginated, no. 11.

1979: Shapley, Fern Rusk. Catalogue of the Italian Paintings. 2 vols. National Gallery of Art, Washington, 1979: 1:400-402; 2:pl. 285.

1982: Christiansen, Keith. "The Baptism of Christ." Metropolitan Museum of Art: Notable Acquisitions 1981-82. New York, 1982: 42.

1984: Aikema, Bernard. "Proposte per Sebastiano Ricci e per Nicola Grassi." Nicola Grassi e il Rococò europeo. (Atti del Congresso internazionale di Studi, 20-22 maggio 1982.) Udine, 1984: 95, fig. 97.

1984: Daniels, Jeffery. "Grassi: Direct or Indirect?" Nicolas Grassi e il Rococò europeo. (Atti del Congresso internazionale di Studi, 20-22 maggio 1982.) Udine, 1984: 109.

1985: European Paintings: An Illustrated Catalogue. National Gallery of Art, Washington, 1985: 351, repro.

1991: Scarpa Sonino, Annalisa. Marco Ricci. Milan, 1991: 22-25, repro.

1996: De Grazia, Diane, and Eric Garberson, with Edgar Peters Bowron, Peter M. Lukehart, and Mitchell Merling. Italian Paintings of the Seventeenth and Eighteenth Centuries. The Collections of the National Gallery of Art Systematic Catalogue. Washington, D.C., 1996: 230-236, color repro. 233.