Leonardo took the commission at a professional low point, not at the height of success

King establishes that by the time Leonardo began The Last Supper in 1495, at age 43, he had spent over a decade at the Milanese court of Duke Ludovico Sforza without completing a single major work that matched his reputation. His most ambitious recent project, an enormous bronze equestrian monument honoring the Duke's father, had collapsed when the bronze intended for the statue was requisitioned to make cannons defending against a French invasion. The mural commission for a Dominican convent's dining hall was, in this context, a comparatively modest consolation project rather than a triumphant assignment given to an established master. This context matters because it undercuts the image of effortless genius, showing instead a talented but underdelivering artist under real pressure to finally produce something worthy of his reputation.