The Evidence of Change

The surviving preparatory drawings document a compositional evolution from conventional to revolutionary. They prove that Leonardo did not arrive at his radical design instantly — he started with tradition and deliberately dismantled it. The most important group of autograph studies is held by the Royal Collection at Windsor Castle.

The Windsor Studies

RCIN 912542 — The Compositional Study (c. 1493–1494)

Medium: Pen and ink

This is the only true compositional study showing the full arrangement of figures at the table. It depicts approximately ten figures with Judas on the near side of the table, following tradition — proving Leonardo consciously abandoned this convention. The sheet includes studies for the central group with Judas rising to take bread from Christ and John asleep on the table. This single drawing is the Rosetta Stone of the Last Supper's evolution: it shows us the painting Leonardo didn't make.

RCIN 912551 — Head of St. Philip (c. 1495)

Medium: Black chalk

A carefully elaborated study that idealizes a life drawing. The Royal Collection describes it as taking the figure "one step out of the real world and into the divine." Philip's pleading expression — hands to chest, face turned toward Christ — is already fully realized in this drawing.

RCIN 912552 — Head of St. James the Greater (c. 1495)

Medium: Red chalk and pen and ink, 25.2 × 17.2 cm

Described as Leonardo's "only surviving Last Supper study drawn from the life" — meaning it captures a real model's features rather than being idealized from memory. Rapid architectural sketches on the same sheet confirm its status as a working study made on-site. James's mouth-open, arms-spread expression of stunned disbelief translates directly into the final painting.

RCIN 912547 — Head of Judas (c. 1495)

Medium: Red chalk on prepared paper, c. 18 × 15 cm

Judas in profile: hooked nose, close-set lips, strongly modeled muscular neck. Leonardo famously told the prior of Santa Maria delle Grazie that if he couldn't find a suitable model for Judas, he would use the prior's own face. Whether or not this drawing records that threat made good, it captures a face that is recognizably individual — not a generic villain but a specific human capable of betrayal.

RCIN 912548 — Head of St. Bartholomew (c. 1495)

Medium: Red chalk

Bartholomew in profile — a heavy, frowning face with pursed lips. The drawing captures the startled tension visible in the final painting, where Bartholomew rises from his seat at the far left end of the table.

RCIN 912546 — The Arm of St. Peter (c. 1495)

A study of the arm holding the knife that foreshadows Gethsemane. The muscular specificity reflects Leonardo's anatomical knowledge — this is not a generalized "arm with knife" but a particular arm in a particular state of tension.

Copies After Lost Originals

Additional drawings survive that are copies after lost Leonardo originals:

These copies hint at a much larger body of preparatory work that has not survived — dozens or hundreds of drawings that Leonardo produced over the three-to-four-year painting campaign.

The Venice Compositional Study

The Gallerie dell'Accademia, Venice holds a pen-and-ink compositional study (Inv. 254, 26.6 × 21.4 cm, c. 1494) showing the full scene with nine apostles identified by names written in Leonardo's mirror writing. In this version, Judas is still on the opposite side of the table — confirming that the decision to integrate him among the other apostles came relatively late in the design process.

The Brera Head of Christ

The Pinacoteca di Brera in Milan holds a contested chalk-and-pastel Head of Christ (40 × 32 cm). It is heavily reworked and its attribution is debated — but if genuine, it represents Leonardo's attempt to solve the most difficult problem in the composition: how to render the face of God incarnate. X-ray evidence confirmed that in the final painting, Christ and St. John have no underdrawing — Leonardo painted these two critical faces entirely freehand, perhaps because no preparatory drawing could satisfy him.

The Notebook Blueprint

"One who was drinking and has left the glass in its position and turned his head towards the speaker. Another, twisting the fingers of his hands together turns with stern brows to his companion. Another with his hands spread open shows the palms, and shrugs his shoulders up his ears making a mouth of astonishment."

— Leonardo da Vinci (Richter edition, p. 232)

This passage from the Forster Codex II.1 at the Victoria and Albert Museum describes "postures of a group at a table" and is almost certainly related to the Last Supper. It reveals Leonardo's method of working from text to image — pre-scripting each figure's psychological action as a playwright might draft stage directions, then searching for living models whose faces and bodies could embody those directions.

What the Drawings Tell Us

Together, the preparatory studies reveal three key truths about Leonardo's process:

  1. He started conventional — Judas across the table, John asleep, figures in a row
  2. He drew from life — real models, real anatomy, real expressions captured in red and black chalk
  3. He idealized from life — transforming observed reality through the lens of psychology and theology until each figure became both a portrait and an archetype