This is the only true compositional study known for Leonardo’s greatest painting to reach completion, the Last Supper, in the refectory of Santa Maria delle Grazie in Milan. Leonardo’s challenge was to integrate 13 men in a harmonious composition while differentiating them in their poses and facial types: a passage in Leonardo’s notebook of c.1493–4 lists possible attitudes and actions, and an uncharacteristically stiff drawing in Venice that must be related to the project seems to be a similar assemblage of individual responses.

At upper left are perhaps ten figures seated at the table, with Judas on the near side. To the right is a study for the central group, with Judas rising from his seat to take the bread from Christ, St John asleep on the table, and another Disciple in a gesture of astonishment. St John is sketched again immediately below, with a quick notation of two Disciples, one speaking in the other’s ear. The studies of arcading and octagons might conceivably be related to the building projects at Santa Maria delle Grazie.

Leonardo’s Last Supper was a revolutionary exercise in the depiction of emotion that combines the Institution of the Eucharist with the reaction of the Disciples to Christ’s announcement of his imminent betrayal. The monastery church was a focus of Sforza patronage, and heraldic arms painted above the Last Supper testify that it was commissioned by Ludovico, who was reported to dine in the refectory twice a week.

See also RCIN 912542, 912546 - 912548, 912551, 912552.

Text adapted from Leonardo da Vinci: A life in drawing, London, 2018