Bassano, Jacopo

The Last Supper

1542; Oil on canvas; Galleria Borghese, Rome

Jacopo Bassano's Last Supper is one of the masterpieces of 16th-century Italian painting. Instead of the elegant grouping of figures in Leonardo's painting, which inspired it, this dramatic scene features barefoot fishermen at the crucial moment when Christ asks who will betray him, and the light passing through a glass of wine stains the clean tablecloth red. Recent restoration has only now revealed the extraordinary original colours, which had been heavily painted over in the 19th century, when the emerald green and iridescent pinks and oranges were not in fashion.