Jesus speaks with his hand raised, light bursting from his head; the young disciple whom Jesus loved rests against him with closed eyes.
Bible in art · John
The Last Supper
Albrecht Dürer · 1510
The Cleveland Museum of Art
Dürer cut this Last Supper in 1510, when he went back to his Large Passion, a set of big woodcuts begun some thirteen years before. In 1511 he published the twelve sheets in Nuremberg as a book, with Latin verses printed on the back.
The meal is set under a heavy vault lit by one round window. Rays of light spread from Jesus’ head as he speaks with a raised hand, and the apostles crowd the table, turning to one another.
From the text
- The twelve reclining at the table with Jesus in the evening (Matthew 26:20)
- The disciple whom Jesus loved at his side, leaning against him (John 13:23–25)
- The disciples looking at one another, perplexed (John 13:22)
The artist’s own
- A vaulted German room with a round window instead of an upper room in Jerusalem
- A tall jug, a jar and a stool of Dürer’s day in the foreground
- The date 1510 cut on the trestle of the table
Details
At his side
What is left of the meal
A platter with the bones and head of the roasted lamb, bread rolls and a glass beaker.
Pouring
An apostle in front pours from a tall jug into a cup.
1510
The year is cut on the leg of the table, the monogram on the floor below.
Albrecht Dürer, German, 1471–1528. The Cleveland Museum of Art (Gift of The Print Club of Cleveland in memory of Ralph King, 1926.112) · Woodcut · Cleveland Museum of Art Open Access: Collection API record "share_license_status": "CC0" (Creative Commons Zero, https://creativecommons.org/publicdomain/zero/1.0/).