The Last Supper

Maestro Bartolomé painted this Last Supper around 1480 as part of his major altarpiece cycle. The Last Supper, Christ's final meal with the apostles, was the first scene in the Passion narrative and held sacramental significance as the institution of the Eucharist. Bartolomé's treatment shows his engagement with Netherlandish compositional models adapted for Spanish patrons. This work belongs to the Early Renaissance, the transformative period in European art when painters first applied mathematical perspective, naturalistic figure modeling, and archaeological interest in antiquity to the inherited traditions of medieval devotional painting.

Oil on panel with the twelve apostles arranged around the table in a standard compositional format. The Hispano-Flemish technique shows in the careful rendering of costumes, tableware, and architectural setting.