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©
Museo Nacional Thyssen-Bornemisza, Madrid
Anonymous Venetian artist

The Last Supper

ca. 1570
Oil on canvas.
121 x 190 cm
Museo Nacional Thyssen-Bornemisza, Madrid
Inv. no.
17
(
1934.5
)
Not on display
  • Level 2 Permanent Collection
  • Level 1 Permanent Collection
  • Level 0 Carmen Thyssen Collection and Temporary exhibition rooms
  • Level -1 Temporary exhibition rooms, Conference room and EducaThyssen workshop
Level 2
Permanent Collection
1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 14 13 15 16 17 18 22 19 20 21 23 24 25 26 27 28 29 Recommended start of the visitClassical rooms
1 14th Century. Early Italian Painting 2 15th Century. German and Spanish Painting 3 15th Century. Early Netherlandish Painting 4 15th Century. Italian Painting 5 15th and 16th Centuries. Renaissance Portraiture 6 16th Century. Villahermosa Gallery 7 16th Century. Italian Painting 8 15th and 16th Centuries. German Painting 9 15th and 16th Centuries. German Painting 10 16th Century. Netherlandish Painting 11 Tiziano, Tintoretto, Bassano and  El Greco 12 17th Century. Caravaggio and Baroque Painting 13 17th Century. Italian, French and Spanish Painting 14 17th Century. Italian, French and Spanish Painting 15 17th Century. Italian, French and Spanish Painting 16 18th Century. Italian Painting 17 18th Century. Italian Painting 18 18th Century. Italian Painting 19 Classical rooms 20 Classical rooms 21 Classical rooms 22 18th Century. Italian Painting 23 17th Century. Dutch Painting. Landscape 24 18th Century. French and English Painting 25 17th Century. Dutch Painting. Scenes of Daily Life and Interiors 26 17th Century. Dutch Painting. Landscape 27 17th Century. Dutch Painting. Portrait 28 17th Century. Dutch Painting. Landscape 29 19th Century. European Painting. Goya and Romanticism  
Level 1
Permanent Collection
30 31 32 33 34 35 36 37 38 39 40 41 42 43 44 45 46 47 48 49 50 51 52 53 54 55 56 Postpop rooms Rodin room
30 18th and 19th Centuries. Transatlantic Relations 31 19th Century. American Landscape and Environmental Awareness 32 19th Century. American Landscape and Urban Life 33 Recovering the ligth. Restoration of Waterloo Bridge, by André Derain 34 20th Century. Expressionist Landscapes 35 20th Century. Expressionist Portraits 36 20th Century. The Language of the Body 37 20th Century. Urban unrest 38 20th Century. Flowers 39 20th Century. Pioneers of abstraction 40 20th Century. Popular flavor 41 20th Century. The Cubist Tradition I 42 20th Century. The Cubist Tradition II 43 20th Century. Abstract Utopias 44 20th Century. Dada and Surrealism 45 20th Century. Interwar Realisms 46 20th Century. American Abstraction I 48 20th Century. Post-ward American Art 49 20th Century. Post-ward European Figurative Art 50 20th Century. Informalisms 51 20th Century. Homo Ludens 52 20th Century. Pop Art 53 Postpop rooms 54 Postpop rooms 55 Postpop rooms 56 Postpop rooms Rodin Exhibition room
Level 0
Carmen Thyssen Collection and Temporary exhibition rooms
A B C D E F G H I J Hall Temporary exhibition rooms Access to Permanent Collection Entrance Access to Carmen Thyssen Collection Paseo del Prado Garden
A 17th and 18th Centuries. Old Masters B 19th Century. North American Landscape C 19th Century. French Naturalist Landscape D 19th Century. Impressionism E 19th Century. Monet and North American Impressionism F 19th Century. Gauguin and Postimpressionism G 19th and 20th Centuries. Neo Impressionism and its Wake H 20th Century. Early Avant-gardes I 20th Century. Between the Wars Painting. Cubism, Abstraction and Surrealism J 20th Century. North American Painting and Others • HALL
Level -1
Temporary exhibition rooms, Conference room and EducaThyssen workshop
Temporary exhibition rooms Conference room EducaThyssen Workshop
The Last Supper entered the Collection in 1934 from a private Venetian collection. One year later it was the subject of a brief report by Gronau, possibly commissioned by Baron Heinrich Thyssen- Bornemisza. The painting has been attributed to El Greco since it entered the Collection and was described as such from the 1937 catalogue by Rudolf Heinemann to Gertrude Borghero’s text of 1986. August L. Mayer examined it in 1945 and also considered it to be by El Greco, an opinion shared five years later by José Camón Aznar who dated it to around 1567. In his monograph on El Greco, however, Wethey included it in the chapter on works by the artist’s school, copies and incorrect attributions. He attributed it to the Venetian School around 1590 and detected “a combined influence of Veronese and Tintoretto”. This opinion was shared in the 1992 catalogue published on the arrival of the Thyssen-Bornemisza Collection in Spain. In this publication it was, however, dated to around 1570.

Authors who associated this work with El Greco considered it to be from his Italian period, when the artist assimilated the western style of painting. Having left Crete, El Greco settled in Venice in 1567, leaving there in the mid-1570s to move to Rome, which was his last period in Italy, and from there to Spain in 1577. There are many gaps in our knowledge regarding El Greco’s ten years in Italy although new works from this phase have continued to be added to his oeuvre over the past decades.

The Last Supper was not a subject frequently painted by El Greco, although there is a work by the artist on this theme in the Pinacoteca Nazionale, Bologna, dated to around 1567–70, which corresponds to his Italian period. The approach to the subject has little in common with the present canvas. For the Bologna work El Greco looked to models by Tintoretto and arranged the subject around a table with the Apostles on all four sides and Christ facing the viewer, located in a simple interior with a checkerboard floor. In the present work, however, the artist has created a pronounced diagonal with the table, which runs across the room from one side to another, leading the eye to the end of the room. Also in the centre, Christ begins to bless the Apostles who are seated in Savonarola chairs at his side and at the ends of the table. The room is decorated with striking architectural features that create the spatial setting such as Ionic columns and sculptures while through the windows we see a city view with rooftops and buildings. As previous authors have noted, the painting recalls works by Tintoretto with regard to the composition, and by Veronese in the wealth of anecdotal detail surrounding the main episode.

Mar Borobia
16th Century16th Century - Italian paintingPaintingOilcanvas
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The Last Supper. La Última Cena, c. 1570
The Last Supper
Anonymous Venetian artist

©

Museo Nacional Thyssen-Bornemisza, Madrid

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The Last Supper. La Última Cena, c. 1570
The Last Supper
Anonymous Venetian artist

©

Museo Nacional Thyssen-Bornemisza, Madrid

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