Last Supper, 1631 - 1632
Pieter Paul Rubens - Oil on panel - cm 304 × 250
It was one of the five Flemish paintings sent to Brera in 1813 in exchange for several works taken from Milan by Napoleon, and comes from the chapel of the Santissimo Sacramento in the church of St. Romuald at Malines, for which it was commissioned by Catherine Lescuyer to commemorate the death of her father. Executed between 1631 and 1632, it was completed by two predellas with scenes from the Passion of Christ, currently in the Musée des Beaux- Arts in Dijon.
The work, like many others from the late production of Rubens, was executed with the help of assistants: it is painted in a warm and intense style, in which bold lines shape forms framed in a composition of majestic classical equilibrium. The influence of 16th-century Italian painting, especially that of the Veneto, is evident.
