Single Leaf with Scenes from the Last Supper (c.1525–30): Art, History and Details

Single Leaf with Scenes from the Last Supper (c.1525–30) is in the Cleveland Museum of Art collection. The museum's creator attribution is Simon Bening (Flemish, 1483–1561).

The work and its context

The museum's open-access catalogue describes the work:

Born either in Ghent or Antwerp in 1483, Simon Bening became one of the most famous manuscript painters of the 1500s. He was the son of the miniaturist Alexander Bening. His long career in Bruges, where he worked from 1508 until 1555, was distinguished by a series of major commissions for celebrated families. This illuminated leaf, one of 11 preserved from the now lost parent manuscript, was painted for a member of the important Spanish family of Enriquez de Ribera, whose coat of arms appears at the bottom of the miniature. The incident, shown in the upper register, during which Jesus gives a piece of bread to Judas (dressed in yellow and green) to indicate his knowledge of his betrayal, is depicted primarily according to the Gospel of John (13:21–30). In the lower register, Judas, realizing that his betrayal is understood, gets up suddenly to leave. His wooden stool topples over, and Christ’s words appear in a banderole: Quod facis fac cito ("What thou doest, do quickly," John 13:27). The two scenes are surrounded by an illusionistic border in liquid silver, with liquid gold acanthus, butterflies, and flowers. In the upper left of the border is the evangelist Matthew.

Object facts

• Title: Single Leaf with Scenes from the Last Supper
• Date: c.1525–30
• Creator attribution: Simon Bening (Flemish, 1483–1561)
• Culture: Flanders, Bruges
• Type: Manuscript
• Technique: tempera with liquid gold and silver on vellum, mounted on old wood board
• Dimensions: Overall: 17 x 12.5 cm (6 11/16 x 4 15/16 in.)
• Collection: MED - Manuscript Illuminations
• Department: Medieval Art
• Accession number: 2002.52

Collection credit

Gift of Bruce Ferrini, Pamela Ferrini, associates, and friends in memory of Matthew Ferrini

Further reading listed by the museum

• Hindman, Sandra, Simon Bening, Laura Light, and Matthew J. Westerby. Simon Bening and the Enríquez De Ribera Prayerbook. Paris ; New York : Les Enluminures, 2021.
• Nicka, Isabella. Prozessierte Objekte?: Möbel in den Erzählstrategien visueller Medien des Mittelalters. Wien : Böhlau Verlag, 2022.

View the collection record

See the museum's photographs and full catalogue entry. Catalogue text is reproduced from the Cleveland Museum of Art's open-access data, with HTML formatting removed. This object and its supplied image are designated CC0.