This medieval wooden sculpture by Adriaen van Wesel represents a scene from the life of Christ. It is now presented as an independent work, but that was not the artist’s intention. The piece originally formed part of a far larger retable, or altarpiece, comprising a number of sculptures.
In the past, particularly in the nineteenth century, altars were often dismantled or cut into separate parts, each of which was sold individually. As a result, they were scattered among various collections in different parts of the world. In 1475, Van Wesel was commissioned to make a large altarpiece depicting the Life of the Virgin for a chapel in Saint Jan’s Cathedral in ‘s-Hertogenbosch. That, too, was later divided up. Some of its components are now in museums in the Netherlands and abroad, such as the Rijksmuseum in Amsterdam and the Gruuthuse Museum in Bruges.
It is impossible to identify the altarpiece to which The Last Supper originally belonged. It was probably an altarpiece illustrating the Passion of Christ. The Passion, along with the Life of the Virgin, was a popular subject in late mediaeval art. The exact provenance of the work is unlikely ever to be known.