About the Artwork
British King George III commissioned this enormous painting from Benjamin West in 1786, when the American-born artist was living in London as the king’s official history painter. That position paid a substantial income and supported West’s ambitions to paint monumental canvases depicting scenes from the Bible.
In this image of the Last Supper, Judas looms prominently in the foreground, a reference to John 13:30: “As soon as Judas had taken the bread, he went out. And it was night.” West chose to cast the outsized figure of Judas in a sickly green shadow, prompting the critic Horace Walpole to quip, “he seems more likely to burst by his bulk than through guilt.” King George III donated this painting to Saint George’s Chapel at Windsor Castle along with monumental stained-glass windows also designed by West.
The Last Supper
1786
Benjamin West
1738-1820
American
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Oil on canvas
Unframed: 98 × 140 1/2 inches (248.9 cm × 3 m 56.9 cm) Framed: 114 × 154 1/2 × 5 1/2 inches (289.6 cm × 3 m 92.4 cm × 14 cm)
Paintings
American Art before 1950
Founders Society Purchase, Robert H. Tannahill Foundation Fund and Gibbs-Williams Fund
80.101
Public Domain
Markings
Signed and dated, lower left: B. West 1786
Provenance
1786, commissioned by George III (Windsor, England).June 2, 1978, sale, Dean and Canons of Windsor, Sotheby's, lot 132 (London, England).
dealer, Somerville and Simpson (London, England) and dealer, P. and D. Colnaghi (London, England).
1980-present, purchase by the Detroit Institute of Arts (Detroit, Michigan, USA)
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Provenance pageExhibition History
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The exhibition history of a number of objects in our collection only begins after their acquisition by the museum, and may reflect an incomplete record.
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Suggest FeedbackPublished References
Evans, Dorinda. Benjamin West and His American Students. Exh. cat., National Portrait Gallery. Washington, D.C., 1980, p. 19 (fig. 4).
Bulletin of the DIA 59, no. 4 (1981): p. 109 (ill.).
Von Erffa, Helmut, and Allen Staley. The Paintings of Benjamin West. New Haven, 1986, pp. 354-355, no. 346.
Black, Mary, et al. American Paintings in the Detroit Institute of Arts. Vol. 1, Works by Artists Born Before 1816. New York, 1991, pp. 229-231, no. 106.
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Credit Line for Reproduction
Benjamin West, The Last Supper, 1786, oil on canvas. Detroit Institute of Arts, Founders Society Purchase, Robert H. Tannahill Foundation Fund and Gibbs-Williams Fund, 80.101.
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