The Last Supper

Prints and Drawings

late 1613 or early 1614

Peter Paul Rubens
Flemish, 1577–1640

This important drawing is one of a group of preparatory designs for a Roman Catholic prayer book (the Breviarium Romanum) that was reissued in 1614 under the new parameters of Counter-Reformation liturgy. This scene, in which Peter Paul Rubens placed the figure of Judas—instead of Christ—as center-most in the composition, preceded prayers celebrating the feast of Corpus Christi. The layered used of media and precise placement of compositional elements reflect Rubens’s intense desire to control the printed versions of his designs.

Status: Currently Off View
Department: Prints and Drawings

Artist: Peter Paul Rubens
Title: The Last Supper
Place: Flanders (Artist's nationality)
Date Dates are not always precisely known, but the Art Institute strives to present this information as consistently and legibly as possible. Dates may be represented as a range that spans decades, centuries, dynasties, or periods and may include qualifiers such as c. (circa) or BCE.: Made 1613–1614
Medium: Pen and brown ink, with brush and brown wash, heightened with touches of white opaque watercolor, over traces of black chalk, on cream laid paper, incised for transfer
Inscriptions: Inscribed verso of mount, upper left, in graphite: "246"; inscribed by Goll van Franckenstein, lower left, in pen and brown ink: "N 4050"; lower left, in graphite: "Rubens...(possible date)"; lower right, in graphite: "L (illegible) 1 6 / 20269702 1"
Dimensions: 30.2 × 19.7 cm (11 15/16 × 7 13/16 in.)
Credit Line: Gift of Richard and Mary L. Gray
Reference Number: 2022.94
IIIF Manifest The International Image Interoperability Framework (IIIF) represents a set of open standards that enables rich access to digital media from libraries, archives, museums, and other cultural institutions around the world. Learn more.: https://api.artic.edu/api/v1/artworks/202252/manifest.json

C. G. Boerner, Düsseldorf, Hundert Zeichnungen, 1969, cat. 80
Justus Müller Hofstede, “Two Unpublished Drawings by Rubens,” Master Drawings 12, no. 2 (summer, 1974), pp. 133-–37, pl. 5 (p. 191).
J. Richard Judson and Carl Van de Velde, Corpus Rubenianum Ludwig Burchard XXI, Book Illustrations and Title-pages (H. Miller/Heyden, 1978), vol. 1, pp. 141-42, no. 26a; vol. 2, pl. 90.
Felice Stampfle, “Netherlandish Drawings of the Fifteenth and Sixteenth Centuries and Flemish Drawings of the Seventeenth and Eighteenth Centuries in the Pierpont Morgan Library” (Pierpont Morgan Library/Princeton University Press, 1991), p. 142, under no. 305.
J Richard Judson, “Corpus Rubenianum Ludwig Burchard”, vol. 6, “The Passion of Christ” (Turnhout, 2000), p. 49, fig. 56, p. 52 n. 9.

New York, C. G. Boerner Inc., Old Master Drawings, Jan. 21–Feb. 8 2002, cat. 17.
Art Institute of Chicago, Gray Collection, Seven Centuries of Art, Sept. 25, 2010–Jan. 2, 2011, cat. 33, pp. 60–61, 180 (color ill.).
San Francisco, Legion of Honor, Fine Arts Museums of San Francisco, Early Rubens, Apr. 6–Sept. 2, 2019, pp. 268–269 (ill).
Art Institute of Chicago, Rubens, Rembrandt, and Drawing in the Golden Age, Sept. 28, 2019–Jan. 5, 2020, pp. 205 (ill.), 206, 313, cat. 73.
Art Institute of Chicago, Pure Drawing: Seven Centuries of Art from the Gray Collection, 2020; shown only in New York, Morgan Library and Museum, Feb. 19–June 6, 2021.

Gosuinus Uilenbrock (1658–1740), Amsterdam; sold, Amsterdam, Oct. 23, 1741, one of eleven in Album Q, to Yver. Gabriel Huquier the Elder (1695–1772), Paris; sold, Amsterdam, Sept. 14 (and following days), 1761, Album E, lot 554. Gerardus Schroder, Hardervijk; sold, Amsterdam, Feb. 20 (and following days), 1764, lot 210, to Yver. Maximilian-Léopold-Ghislain de Mérode-Montfort, Prince de Rubempré et d’Everberghe (1710–1773), Brussels; sold, Paris, July 1–6, 1765, lot 253, to Basan. M. Tournier; sold, Paris, Apr. 14 (and following days), 1773, lot 191. Johann Goll van Franckenstein (1722–1785), Amsterdam [inscription (Lugt 2987), verso of mount, lower left, in brown]; presumably by descent to his son Pieter Hendrick Goll van Franckenstein, Amsterdam. E. J. Reynolds (1876–c. 1932), St. Petersburg and Switzerland [Lugt 900b]. C. G. Boerner, Düsseldorf, by 1969. Prof. Peter Kröker, Murnau, by 1974. Private collection, New York, by 1991; sold, Sotheby’s, London, July 11, 2001, lot 80. Sold by C. G. Boerner, New York, to Richard and Mary L. Gray and the Gray Collection Trust, Chicago, Feb. 22, 2002 (promised to the Art Institute of Chicago, 2018); given to the Art Institute of Chicago, 2022.

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Date Dates are not always precisely known, but the Art Institute strives to present this information as consistently and legibly as possible. Dates may be represented as a range that spans decades, centuries, dynasties, or periods and may include qualifiers such as c. (circa) or BCE.

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Date Dates are not always precisely known, but the Art Institute strives to present this information as consistently and legibly as possible. Dates may be represented as a range that spans decades, centuries, dynasties, or periods and may include qualifiers such as c. (circa) or BCE.

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IIIF Manifest The International Image Interoperability Framework (IIIF) represents a set of open standards that enables rich access to digital media from libraries, archives, museums, and other cultural institutions around the world.

Learn more.