MARCANTONIO RAIMONDI (1480-1534) AFTER RAPHAEL (1483-1520)

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 model for 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.