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The Last Supper

Photo: Eduardo Calderón

The Last Supper

1620-21

Peter Paul Rubens

Flemish, 1577-1640

In this sketch for the ceiling of the new Jesuit church in Antwerp, our attention focuses on the intense exchange between Christ and his disciples as he explains the new sacrament of the Eucharist, in which his body and blood are miraculously transformed into bread and wine. Rubens creates this concentrated emotional state by drawing all of the figures toward the center; he retained a bright palette to make the composition legible far above the viewers' heads.

Oil on wood
17 1/4 x 17 3/8 in. (43.8 x 44.1 cm)
Samuel H. Kress Collection
61.166
Provenance: (Possibly owned by Victor Wolfvoet (1612-1652), inventoried Antwerp 24-6 Oct 1652); (Possibly owned by Simon de Vos (1603-1676) and sold to Guilliam I Forchoudt, Antwerp, 16 June 1662); Jacques de Roore (1686-1747), The Hague; [his sale, Verheyden, The Hague, 4 September 1747, no. 45, sold with six other Rubens studies for the church ceiling]; purchased by Anthonis and Stephanus de Groot; [Groot sale, Rietmudler, The Hague, 20 March 1771, lot 4, sold with other modelli from series]; [purchased by Abelsz]; Jacques Clemens; [his sale, Ghent, 21 June 1779, lot 232]; [sale, Schley et. al., Amsterdam, 19 September 1798, no. 150, bought in] [1]; [sale, Geens, Brussels, 25 August 1814, no. 108]; Pauwels, Brussels, until sold in Brussels, 18 July [25 Aug] 1814, lot 108; Robert de Saint-Victor, Paris, until sold in Paris, 25 Nov 1822-7 Jan 1823, lot 29; purchased by Roux, 1822; Madame la Marquise d’Aoust , Paris, until sold at Galerie Georges Petit, 5 June 1924, lot 78; Federico Gentili di Giuseppe, Paris, until 1940 (his death); to his daughter, Mrs. A. Salem, Boston, 1940-1950; Frederick Mont and Newhouse Galleries, Inc., New York, 1950-1954 (exhibited Olieverfschetsen van Rubens, Boymans Museum, Rotterdam, 1953-54, cat. no. 34, pl. 28); Samuel H. Kress Foundation, New York, January 25, 1954 (exhibited Drawings and Oil Sketches by P.P. Rubens from American Collections, The Fogg Museum, Cambridge, MA / The Pierpont Morgan Library, New York, 1956, cat. no. 32, pl. XXI; Exhibition of Art Treasures for America from the Samuel H. Kress Collection, 10 Dec 1961 – 4 Feb 1962, cat. no. 80); Seattle Art Museum, since 1954, accessioned 1961 [1] Sources vary as to whether this lot in the anonymous sale was consigned by Barchman Wuytiers, Brussels or Supertini and Platina, Brussels. The lot was consigned by "F."
Photo: Eduardo Calderón
location
Now on view at the Seattle Art Museum

Resources

Exhibition HistoryRotterdam, Netherlands, Boymans Museum, Olieverfschetsen van Rubens, 1953/4. Cat. no. 34, plate 28.

Cambridge, Mass., Fogg Art Museum, Harvard University, Drawings and Oil Sketches by P.P. Rubens from American Collections, Jan. 14-Feb. 29, 1956 (New York, The Pierpont Morgan Library, Mar. 20-Apr. 28, 1956). Text by Agnes Mongan. Cat. no. 32, pp. 29-30, reproduced pl. XXI.

Washington, D.C., National Gallery of Art, Art Treasures for America from the Samuel H. Kress Collection, Dec. 10, 1961-Feb. 4, 1962.

Portland, Ore., Portland Art Museum, Diamond Jubilee Exhibit: 75 Masterworks, 1967.

Seattle, Wash., Seattle Art Museum, Seattle Art Museum Treasures: Four Decades of Collecting, 1973.

National Gallery of Art, Washington D.C., Leonardo’s Last Supper: Before and After, Dec. 1983-Mar. 1984.

New York, Salander-O'Reilly Galleries, Peter Paul Rubens: The Oil Sketches, Nov. 15, 1989-Jan. 27, 1990.

Raleigh, N.C., The North Carolina Museum of Art, A Gift to America: Masterpieces of European Painting from the Samuel H. Kress Collection, Feb. 5, 1994-April 24, 1994; (Houston, Tex., Houston Museum of Art, May 22-Aug. 14, 1994; Seattle, Wash., The Seattle Art Museum, Sept. 15-Nov. 20, 1994; San Francisco, Calif., The Fine Arts Museums of San Francisco, Dec. 17, 1994-Mar. 4, 1995.) Text by Chiyo Ishikawa et al. Cat. no. 12, pp. 116-119.

Cincinnati, Ohio, Cincinnati Art Museum, Drawn by the Brush: Oil Sketches by Peter Paul Rubens, Oct. 2, 2004-Sept. 11, 2005. Text by Peter C. Sutton. P. 122, fig. 10.

Published ReferencesRooses, Max. Rubens. London, England: Duckworth & Company, 1904: pp. 241, 242, 28, 237.

c.f. Denucé, Jean. Kunstuitvoer in de 17e eeuw te Antwerpen de firma Forchoudt. Antwerp, Belgium: De Sikkel, 1931: pp. 62-63.

Puvelde, Leo Van. Les Esquisses de Rubens. Translated by Eveline Winkworth. London, England: Kegan Paul, Trench, Trubner and Co., 1947; pp. 26-28.

Suida, William and Richard Fuller. European Paintings and Sculpture from the Samuel H. Kress Collection. Seattle, Wash.: Seattle Art Museum, 1954; p. 60, reproduced p. 61.

Jaffe, Michael. “Rubens at Rotterdam.” The Burlington Magazine 96, no. 611 (1954): p. 54, 57, reproduced p. 56, pl. 26.

Rosenblum, Robert. “The Kress Collection: Past and Future.” Art Digest 29, no. 11 (1955): p. 16.

Emerson, Guy. "The Kress Collection: Gift to the Nation." National Geographic 120, no. 6 (Dec. 1961): p. 864.

Seymour, Charles. “Art Treasures for America.” London, England: Phaidon Press, 1961; p. 146, reproduced p. 146, pl. 137.

“The Grande Finale of a Fabulous Handout: Kress Foundation Gives $30 Million Worth of Art to American Museums.” Life, Feb.16, 1962, pp. 56-57, reproduced.

“Seattle Art Museum.” Museum News (April 1963): p. 30.

Rachlis, Eugene. The Low Countries. New York: Time Incorporated, 1963; p. 90.

Rumpf, Barbara. “Showpiece.” Art Forum (Sept. 1964): p. 11, reproduced.

Stubbe, Achilles. Peter Paul Rubens. London, England: Blandford Press, 1966; p. 52.

Martin, John Rupert. Corpus Rubenianum Ludwig Burchard. London, England: Phaidon Press, 1967; pp. 82, 198, reproduced pl. 52.

Eisler, Colin. Paintings from the Samuel H. Kress Collection: European Schools Excluding Italian. Oxford, England: Phaidon Publishing, 1977; pp. 106-109.

Held, Julius. The Oil Sketches of Peter Paul Rubens: A Critical Catalogue. Princeton, N.J.: Princeton University Press, 1980; vol. 1, pp. 35, 36-37, 49-50, 468, no. 20; vol. 2, pl. 22.

Scribner, Charles III. Rubens. New York: Harry N. Abrams, Inc., 1989; p. 76, reproduced p. 77, pl. 16.

Ishikawa, Chiyo. The Samuel H. Kress Collection at the Seattle Art Museum. Seattle, Wash.: Seattle Art Museum, 1997; fig. 22, pp. 38-39, 41.

Steinberg, Leo. Leonardo’s Incessant Last Supper. New York: Zone Books, 2001; p. 40, reproduced p. 42.

Pfeiffer, S.J., Heinrich. "Los Jesuitas arte y espiritualidad." In Artes de Mexico, no. 58 (2001): p. 48, reproduced.

Sutton, Peter C. Drawn by the Brush: Oil Sketches by Peter Paul Rubens. New Haven, Conn.: Yale University Press, 2004; p. 122, fig. 10.

Perry, Marily. Studying and Conserving Paintings: Occasional papers on the Samuel H. Kress Collection. London, England and New York: The Conservation Center of the Institute of fine Arts, New York, 2006; p. 216.

Ganz, David and Felix Thurlemann. Das Bild im Plural: Mehrteilige Bildformen zwischen Mittelalter und Gegenwart. Berlin, Germany: Reimer, 2010; reproduced p. 300.

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