Commissioned by Father John Jones for St Mary’s College, Linthorpe, Cleveland. When Father Jones mentioned the subject to Brangwyn, the latter ‘seemed to tremble with emotion. “I have always wanted to paint the Last Supper – I have plenty of drawings” said he, thrilled’ (Father Jones, 1985, unpublished manuscript). Brangwyn produced the work without charge.
Christ in an orange gown stands behind a table laid with perfectly ironed cloth, in the centre of the work, his hands raised as if in blessing. To either side of him the disciples, two seated in front of the table. Background of a solid wall punctuated with two large window like openings through which can be seen a cloudy sky. Birds rest on the parapet. Background right a person pours wine from a flagon, background left trailing vines with bunches of grapes and a person holding aloft a large dish. The table is laid with jugs and vessels, a loaf of bread and a chicken. Branwgyn has included his self portrait a number of times and that of his neighbour and fellow artist William Stewart. Brangwyn’s dog Roger sniffs the ground foreground left.
St John is the young looking man at Christ’s right, partially obscured by the figure of Judas, whom Father Jones described as ‘seated in the foreground alone – on the floor is a money-bag’. Brangwyn described Judas as a ‘fine looking fellow – what? I had a photo of myself which I used’. The remainder of the disciples Brangwyn left to Father Jones to name as he liked! In August 1945 Brangwyn wrote to Father Jones that he had completed the work, noting that ‘the face of Our Lord was the great difficulty, I tried hard, but as I could find no model to get some help from, I had to fix it up without help from the life. The result is – it is rather the conventional type – like one sees in so many paintings. My only satisfaction is that judging from what one reads in the lives of the Masters – Leonardo de Vinci, and others they all had this great difficulty, so it was presumption on my part to try’.
The tradition from the Middle Ages onwards was to place the Apostles at a square table with Christ on the left. However Leonardo da Vinci placed Christ in the centre, and this is the composition Brangwyn followed in all his Last Suppers.
The work was damaged by fire on 15 March 1998.