Details
MARCANTONIO RAIMONDI (1480-1534) AFTER RAPHAEL (1483-1520)
The Last Supper
engraving, circa 1515, on laid paper, watermark Crossbow in Circle surmounted by a Star (Woodward 215, circa 1557), a very good impression of this rare and important print, first state (of two), some defects and repairs
Sheet 287 x 434 mm.
Provenance
Christie's, London, 24 April 1985, lot 230.
Eric G. Stanley (1923-2018), Oxford; acquired from the above sale (through Artemis Fine Arts, London).
Literature
Bartsch 26; Delaborde 17; Shoemaker 30
See E. H. Wouk & D. Morris (eds.), Marcantonio Raimondi, Raphael and the Image Multiplied, Manchester, 2016, no. 42, p. 182-4 (another impression illustrated).
Special notice
Please note this lot is the property of a consumer. See H1 of the Conditions of Sale.
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Lot Essay

According to Emison (2016), the modello for Marcantonio's engraving may have been designed by Raphael in consultation with Leonardo da Vinci before he left Rome for France in 1516. Leonardo may have lamented the poor quality of the early anonymous engravings depicting his fresco of The Last Supper in Santa Maria delle Grazie, Milan (see Hind, Vol. 5, no. 9-11). However, Raphael's approach to the subject differs somewhat from that of Leonardo's: the figure of Christ is almost perfectly centred within the architecture and the landscape that can be glimpsed outside in the background. The window itself is in Bramante's style, instead of da Vinci's three windows in the manner of Sebastiano Serlio. Unlike Leonardo, Raphael also chose not to arrange the apostles in triplets, and his Judas - almost grotesquely - seems to wink seductivly at the viewer. This composition, 'une des pièces les plus remarquables que Marc-Antoine ait gravées d' après Raphaël', must have been enormously succesful: Delaborde recorded at least six copies of this plate. There is a debate amongst scholars whether the version by Marcantonio's pupil Marco Dente may predate the present one. It may well be that the pen and brown ink drawing attributed to Raphael (Royal Collection, Windsor Castle; inv. no. RL 12745) was in fact the modelfor both engravings.

See P. Emison, in E. H. Wouk & D. Morris (eds.), Marcantonio Raimondi, Raphael and the Image Multiplied, Manchester, 2016, no. 42-43, p. 182-4.

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