Warhol’s Last Supper paintings were initially commissioned to inaugurate a gallery in Milan, Italy, across the street from the site of Leonardo da Vinci’s (1452–1519) fresco The Last Supper (c. 1495–1498). They offer a historical perspective on the themes of celebrity, death, and immortality, which Warhol had pursued in his earlier portraits of Marilyn Monroe and his depictions of Jacqueline Kennedy in mourning. As with his soup cans, Coke bottles, and other subjects drawn from popular culture, Warhol repeated the image of Jesus Christ in many of these pictures, including the BMA’s example, as if to suggest that the repetition and cultural circulation of famous images was not only a recent mass media phenomenon, but prevalent throughout Western history. In all, Warhol produced more than 100 Last Supper paintings in slightly more than a year before his death. When asked whether the image of The Last Supper had any particular meaning for him, Warhol cagily replied “No. It’s a good picture.” However, Warhol was a practicing Catholic. It remains unclear whether these works were intended to express the artist’s private religious beliefs or his irreverence towards their subject.