Conservation-restoration of Leonardo da Vinci's The Last Supper until 1498. The scene is understood to depict the Bible verse John 13:22, showing the reactions of the Twelve Disciples, at the Last Supper, in the moments following Jesus’s announcement that one among them will betray him. When he received the commission for "The Last Supper", Leonardo da Vinci had never worked on a piece of this great a size, fifteen feet high by almost twenty-nine feet wide. He also had very limited experience working in the technique known as fresco, mixing pigment into wet plaster to create a permanent bond. Traditionally, fresco painters put down many successive layers of
The Last Supper (Leonardo da Vinci) Vinci Museum of the Tongerlo Abbey, Belgium. For this work, Leonardo sought a greater detail and luminosity than could be achieved with traditional fresco. He painted "The Last Supper" on a dry wall rather than on wet plaster, so it is not a true fresco. Because a fresco cannot be modified as the artist works, Leonardo instead chose to seal the stone wall with a double layer of dried plaster. Then, borrowing from panel painting, he added an undercoat of white lead to enhance the brightness of the oil and tempera that was applied on top. This was a method