Last Supper carving, Upper Room Chapel, Nashville, TN, circa 1953

About this postcard

A wood carving of Leonardo da Vinci's Last Supper fills the wall of The Upper Room Chapel in Nashville, Tennessee. Christ sits at the center of the long table, the twelve apostles ranged on either side, and the deep relief of the carving gives the scene an unusual sense of receding perspective for work in wood. Ernest Pelligrini (the surname is often spelled Pellegrini) spent fourteen months on the modeling and carving, working in lime wood and walnut; the finished panel measures 17 feet wide by 8 feet high. The Upper Room is the Methodist daily devotional guide published from Nashville, and the chapel that houses the carving serves as a devotional and visitor space for that publishing ministry. Mid-century religious publishers often issued postcards of such installations, and this one presents the carving as a sight worth making a pilgrimage to see.