Single-Painting Exhibition: Jean Hibbert, “Voltaire’s Last Supper”

A solo exhibition is on view through September 27 at the Duke’s Library of the Rundāle Palace Museum —the work “Voltaire’s Last Supper” (c. 1772) by Swiss artist Jean-Ibert (1721–1786), on loan from the Voltaire Collection at the University of Oxford.

In this witty and provocative composition, the artist depicts the most prominent thinkers of the French Enlightenment within the framework of the religious motif “The Last Supper.” At the center of the painting is Voltaire, whose figure is rendered as a symbolic reference to Christ and his disciples. Most of the figures depicted were associated with one of the most significant intellectual projects of the 18th century—the ambitious publication of the *Encyclopédie*, or *Dictionary of Sciences, Arts, and Crafts*, and the compilation of its entries.

The work’s message is clear and bold: in the Age of Enlightenment, knowledge, reason, and science become a new system of social values. Although the people and setting depicted in the painting are real, the narrative is allegorical and rich in symbolism.

A particularly fitting venue has been chosen for the exhibition—the Duke’s Library at Rundāle Palace. Peter, Duke of Courland and Semigallia, was an ardent supporter of Enlightenment ideas, collecting works by Voltaire, Diderot, and other thinkers of the era in his library. His efforts to promote education and the dissemination of knowledge culminated in the founding of the Academia Petrina in Jelgava in 1775—the first institution of higher education on the territory of Latvia. The exhibition establishes a symbolic link between the center of the European Enlightenment and the cultural and educational sphere of the Duchy of Courland and Semigallia.