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The Lesser-Known Painting That is One of Art’s Most Perfect
How rich symbolism and meticulous detail tell a story
Few paintings in the history of art come as perfectly formed as this one.
It was made by the Netherlandish painter Dieric Bouts in about 1468, at a time when oil painting was seeing its first brilliant flourishing. Artists from northern Europe began utilising the medium’s slow-drying and semi-translucent properties to produce images with exceptional virtuosity.
Every square inch of canvas was attended to and nothing was left to chance.
Even the tiniest details build the painting’s story. Notice through the doorway on the right, in the outdoor space beyond, a metal jug hanging over a stone basin — barely visible yet meticulously rendered.
This type of jug is known as an aquamanile, a brass or copper pitcher intended for the washing of hands. The name derives from the Latin for water (aqua) and hand (manus). Often such vessels were made in the shape of an animal; this one is more simple in its design.
It is positioned inside a niche, the name for which is lavabo, which also refers to the ceremony of ritualistic hand-washing before the Mass.
What we can surmise is that the figures around the table — before feasting alongside Jesus at his Last Supper — each came into the room via the walled garden and stopped to rinse their hands as they came through.
It is such skillful attention to details like this that give this painting its magnetic quality. Let’s find out more…
Last Supper
The painting depicts The Last Supper, the final meal that Christ took with the twelve disciples before his arrest. The men are sat around a rectangular table, a sort of iceberg of white that structures the central portion of the image and acts as an area of unification in the painting.
