Art Institute of Chicago

The Last Supper

Peter Paul Rubens

Date

late 1613 or early 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

Culture

Flanders

Department

Prints and Drawings

Institution

Art Institute of Chicago

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.

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