Last Supper

The Last Supper is an oil painting by Peter Paul Rubens. It depicts Jesus and the Apostles during the Last Supper, with Judas turning back towards the viewer and away from the table. As in many other Northern European depictions, a dog with a bone can be seen in the scene, probably a simple pet. It may represent faith, dogs are traditionally symbols of and are representing faith. According to J. Richard Judson the dog near Judas, it perhaps representing greed, or representing the evil, as the companion of Judas, as in John 13:27. This painting followed the first unsuccessful attempt by Rubens to produce a Last Supper in 1611, when his patrons backed out the last minute, perhaps due to the high price of 4,000 Guilder asked by Rubens. Leonardo da Vinci's Last Supper fresco was a significant influence on Rubens who created an etching after the Davinci Last Supper, which was one of Rubens first attempts to express the full range of human emotion printed by Pieter Soutman.