Among religious subjects, The Last Supper has been a favorite inspiration for many works of art, and numerous are the great masters who addressed this theme in some of their best known masterpieces. As far back as in the times of the early Christians, there were pictorial representations of the meal that could be found in the catacombs of Rome.

These representations gave an idea of the atmosphere that existed in an ancient dining hall. A later representation is to be found in a bas-relief in the church at Monza in Italy that dates from the sixth century. There is also a pictorial representation in a Syrian codex in the Laurentian Library at Florence, as well as a mosaic representation of The Last Supper in the church of S. Apollinare Nuovo at Ravenna, Italy. Among the masters of the modern school of German artists, the Last Supper of Gebhardt is regarded as a masterpiece.