The Last Supper, after Leonardo da Vinci

Artist:: Rembrandt (Rembrandt van Rijn) (Dutch, Leiden 1606–1669 Amsterdam)

Date:: 1634–35

Medium:: Red chalk

Dimensions:: 14 1/4 x 18 11/16 in. (36.2 x 47.5 cm)

Classification:: Drawings

Credit Line:: Robert Lehman Collection, 1975

Accession Number:: 1975.1.794

Not on view

This unusually large red-chalk drawing by Rembrandt is closely based on an early print after Leonardo da Vinci's famous mural of the Last Supper in Santa Maria delle Grazie, Milan. Far from slavishly replicating his model, Rembrandt has recast all the figures, intensifying their reactions to Christ's words, and has condensed the space they occupy. The Lehman sheet is one of three drawings by Rembrandt based on Leonardo's "Last Supper," a work that profoundly captured his imagination.

Signature: Inscribed and signed in red chalk along the lower border: Wt[] d[] Rembrandt f (the words preceding "Rembrandt" erased at an unknown date)

Inscription: Annotated in red chalk at the bottom right: "f 10-"

Marking: On the verso, a half-length sketch of Christ (now barely visible), in red chalk, and accountings in black chalk or pencil in an old hand (not Rembrandt's ?).

Friederich August II of Saxony, Dresden (1797–1854; Lugt 971 on the recto), and his descendants.

Timelines
Low Countries, 1600-1800 A.D.