The last supper

The Last Supper by the Master of the Amsterdam Death of the Virgin, painted around 1500 and now in the Rijksmuseum, depicts the final meal shared between Christ and his twelve apostles on the eve of the Passion — the institution of the Eucharist and the occasion for the announcement of betrayal. The anonymous master, named for a Death of the Virgin panel in Amsterdam, was a Flemish painter of the final decades of the fifteenth century and the first years of the sixteenth whose work shows the characteristic refinement of the mature Flemish tradition in its treatment of multi-figure narrative subjects. The Last Supper was among the canonical subjects for altarpiece Passion cycles, and the anonymous master's version contributes to the rich tradition of Flemish interpretations of this subject that ran from the Dijon Altarpiece to Bosch and beyond. The Rijksmuseum's panel is among the principal works by this hand in a major institutional collection.

The master arranges the apostles around the long table in the traditional frontal or three-quarter view format, differentiating the disciples through varied expressions and gestures that register the announcement of betrayal. The Flemish tradition of meticulous interior rendering — tiled floor, architectural details, table setting — gives the sacred scene its characteristic material specificity.