One of the Last Supper ‘greats’ arrives at National Gallery in time for Easter

Nicolas Poussin’s Eucharist, considered one of the greatest paintings of the Last Supper, has been acquired by the National Gallery in time for Easter. 

Eucharist (painted around 1637‒40) is one of a cycle of seven scenes Poussin did in the second half of the 1630s showing the Catholic Sacraments (those rites through which divine grace is communicated to human beings): Baptism, Penance, Eucharist, Confirmation, Marriage, Ordination and Extreme Unction.

“This acquisition of Poussin’s Eucharist is doubly timely, not only as the National Gallery begins to celebrate its Bicentenary, but as millions of people across the world prepare to mark the sacrament depicted in it during the Holy Week of Easter,” notes Arts and Heritage Minister Lord Parkinson of Whitley Bay.

Painted for his friend and patron, the Roman antiquarian Cassiano dal Pozzo (1588–1657), Poussin chose the Last Supper as the quintessential depiction of the sacrament of Eucharist. At the centre of the “strikingly symmetrical composition” is Christ holding the bread and cup of wine in one hand and raising the other in blessing, notes the National Gallery.

He is seated at a Roman triclinium, a padded couch whose cushions and bolsters Poussin has decorated with a delicate pattern. Six disciples are on either side. At far left, an unidenitifiable shadowy figure retreats through an open door, creating a sense of movement in an otherwise still scene. The figure second from the left at the table is probably Judas, the only disciple who does not turn towards Christ in the painting.

One of the most striking features of the Eucharist is its dramatic use of light, which comes from three sources: the two flames of the double-wicked lamp above Christ’s head and from the candle on the stool in the centre left foreground. With these multiple light sources, Poussin sets in motion a complex play of shadow projection, with elements casting two or even three shadows.

Eucharist was executed with Poussin’s characteristic precision, the National Gallery notes, adding that Poussin paid a great deal of attention to the rhythm of the disciples’ hands across the picture, several of which are held up to receive Christ’s blessing.

Displayed close to Eucharist is Marriage from the same series and on loan from the collection of the Trustees of the Duke of Rutland’s 2000 Settlement. Poussin illustrates the Sacrament of Marriage by showing the betrothal of the Virgin Mary to Joseph. Poussin depicts Joseph placing the ring on the Mary’s finger, while Joseph still holds the flowering rod, which had distinguished him from the other men as the most appropriate suitor for Mary.

The idea to depict the seven sacraments was “almost unprecedented” in the world of painting at the time, notes the National Gallery. It explains that the endeavour speaks to Poussin’s “extraordinary formal inventiveness, and to the intellectual circle around Dal Pozzo and its fascination with the history of the early Church”.

Six paintings remain from the first series of Sacrament paintings, Penance having been destroyed by fire in 1816. Baptism was acquired by the National Gallery of Art in Washington, DC, in 1939; Ordination by the Kimbell Art Museum, Fort Worth, in 2011; and Extreme Unction by The Fitzwilliam Museum, Cambridge, in 2013. In January 2023, an export licence was issued for Confirmation, which was sold abroad. Eucharist and Marriage remained in the collection of the Trustees of the Duke of Rutland’s 2000 Settlement.

Nicolas Poussin is arguably the single most important French painter before Manet and the Impressionists in the 19th century, says the National Gallery. A native of Normandy, Poussin undertook some artistic training in Paris, but quickly fixed his sights on Italy. He reached Rome (on his third attempt) in 1624 and, bar one unwilling return to Paris as painter to King Louis XIII in 1640–42, remained in the Eternal City for the rest of his life. 

Poussin eschewed the large altarpieces and religious commissions that drew so many of his contemporaries to Rome. Instead, he produced smaller gallery pictures – history paintings, religious scenes and, from the 1640s, landscapes – for a select handful of collectors and connoisseurs. 

Enthusiastically collected by his compatriots and promoted after his death as the father of French painting, Poussin’s works have influenced artists as diverse as Jacques-Louis David (1748–1825), Paul Cezanne (1839–1906), Pablo Picasso (1881–1973) and Francis Bacon (1909–1992).

Eucharist is the first of the National Gallery’s Bicentenary year acquisitions; on 10 May 2024, the Gallery will be 200 years old and will start its Bicentenary celebration: “a year-long festival of art, creativity and imagination, marking two centuries of bringing people and paintings together”. 

Photo: Screenshot of ‘Eucharist’ by Nicolas Poussin at www.nationalgallery.org.uk.