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
Last Supper in Christian art the individual apostles when Jesus stated that one of them would betray him, and portrayed the various attributes of anger, surprise and shock. It is likely that Leonardo da Vinci was already familiar with Ghirlandaio's "Last Supper", as well as that of Castagno, and painted his own "Last Supper" in a more dramatic form to contrast with the stillness of these works, so that more emotion would be displayed. Tintoretto's depiction (1590–1592) at the Basilica di San Giorgio Maggiore in Venice, also depicts the announcement of the betrayal, and includes secondary characters carrying or taking the dishes from the table.