Triptych: The Last Supper

Dieric Bouts's Last Supper altarpiece, completed in 1468 for the Church of St. Peter in Leuven (where it remains), is his masterpiece and one of the central works of early Netherlandish painting. The central panel depicts the Institution of the Eucharist with Christ and the apostles in a precisely rendered Gothic interior. It was the first large-scale Netherlandish painting to use rigorous single-point perspective. Bouts was officially commissioned by the Confraternity of the Holy Sacrament.

Bouts achieves remarkable spatial coherence through strict one-point perspective converging behind Christ's head, while his characteristic cool palette and solemn, immobile figures create a hieratic atmosphere appropriate to the sacramental subject.