The Last Supper

Sebastiano Ricci

National Gallery of Art

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.