Conservation generously funded by a Gift of Thibault C. Stracke & Family

Jacopo Tintoretto’s Last Supper in the prestigious Benedictine monastery church of San Giorgio Maggiore represents the painter’s artistic legacy, the extreme result of a subject whose formal and thematic ideas he explored for almost half a century. This extraordinary canvas was likely commissioned by the monastery’s abbot Michele Alabardi, and together with The Israelites in the Desert still decorates the presbytery’s side walls. Tintoretto painted these two large canvases around 1591 and 1592, just before dying in 1594. At San Giorgio Maggiore, Tintoretto also made his last painting—the Entombment of Christ for the Cappella dei Morti, an altarpiece Save Venice restored in 2020.

Tintoretto’s Last Supper represents a radical departure from traditional depictions of the subject in which Christ’s table usually aligns with the picture plane, as Leonardo da Vinci’s most celebrated fresco shows. Tintoretto too had followed that tradition with his earlier rendition of the church of San Marcuola (1547), but over time the original surroundings and viewing conditions of the paintings affected the painter’s personal redefinition of the composition. That is the case, for example, of Tintoretto’s Last Supper for the Scuola Grande di San Rocco, painted between 1579 and 1581. Located in the Chapter Hall next to the altar, the diagonal angle of the composition appears clearly dictated by the viewpoint of the congregation, which would be sitting to the right of the canvas and thus perceiving the foreshortened table as a direct extension of the altar. 

Though clearly indebted in concept to the Last Supper in San Rocco, Tintoretto’s version at San Giorgio Maggiore goes far beyond the model to become part of the architectural setting. The canvas is placed on the right wall of the presbytery—the sanctuary of the church that physically separates the nave, where the congregation sits during Mass, from the monk’s choir stalls behind the main altar. Similar to San Rocco, the markedly oblique angle of Tintoretto’s composition suggests and indeed establishes a connection between the painted table and the stone altar table. At San Giorgio Maggiore, however, Tintoretto conceived a picture that can be seen simultaneously from two possible angles and, most importantly, from two different sets of viewers. Sitting in the nave, the faithful look at the painting to their right and find themselves in front of the table, witnessing the apostles’ communion as Christ administers the Eucharist and institutes the Mass (the aspergillum and pyx on the small side table on the foreground serve to emphasize that association). At the same time, looking from behind the altar, the monks find the Last Supper to their left and almost feel they are sitting at Christ’s table, next to the apostles. 

According to recent scholarship, Tintoretto should mainly be responsible for envisioning the composition, whereas the actual brushwork is currently attributed to his son Domenico, or the studio assistants. Regardless, this Last Supper remains one of the most inspired and visionary works of Tintoretto, with its non-material, swirling angelic forms that embody the ongoing miracle of the transubstantiation—the transformation of bread and wine into the body and blood of Christ. Indeed, Tintoretto’s artistic stature is evident in every detail of the picture, including the flickering lamp which was likely borrowed and readapted from Titian’s Crowning with Thorns (Alte Pinakothek, Munich), a painting Tintoretto probably acquired when his former master died in 1576.

The last recorded restoration treatment was executed by Mauro Pelliccioli in the 1930s. The new conservation treatment will primarily include the careful removal of several non-original surface layers and residues, such as the thick film of brownish varnish and discoloured old inpainting from previous restorations. Losses will be filled using removable conservation paint and a final coat of protective varnish will be applied.

Jacopo Tintoretto (c. 1518/19 – 1594)
The Last Supper
1591-1592, oil on canvas
367 x 568 cm
Basilica of San Giorgio Maggiore

Basilica di San Giorgio Maggiore: Homepage

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