The Last Supper
1510
From the collection of Cleveland Museum of Art
About the artist
Artist
Albrecht Dürer
Albrecht Dürer spent his life in Nuremberg, a busy German city where artists traded prints like currency.
See the richer artist page1510
From the collection of Cleveland Museum of Art
Dominant colour
The Last Supper is a 1510 by Albrecht Dürer, a Renaissance work, held at Cleveland Museum of Art.
You see thirteen men crowded around a long table, wine spilling, bread broken—Jesus at the center, hands raised. Dürer carved this scene into wood, not painted it. Tiny parallel lines build halos and shadows, turning flat paper into light and space. The moment feels urgent, not holy. Look up *sfumato* next—it’s how later artists softened edges to make scenes glow.
The Christian sacrament of the Eucharist is traced to the Last Supper, when Christ said of the wine, “This is my blood.” For artists, the scene was full of both symbolic and narrative potential. Albrecht Dürer created a compact, vertical composition that focuses on the closeness of the disciples and the moment, wine flowing, when Christ reveals his fate. Dürer’s ingenious woodcut technique includes the creation of a halo made from parallel lines around Christ’s head that continue outward to define the shadow of the vaulted room.
This print depicts the apostles dining on a humble but sturdy refectory table. Dürer included the date of the print on the middle trestle, a location often reserved for heraldry on more lavish tables.
Read the full account in the museum source.
Albrecht Dürer spent his life in Nuremberg, a busy German city where artists traded prints like currency.
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