The Wedding at Cana

Commissioned in 1562–1563 by the Benedictines of San Giorgio Maggiore in Venice for the far wall of their new refectory, Paolo Veronese's 'Wedding Feast at Cana' is a colossal canvas (6.77 × 9.94 m) that transplants the biblical wedding at which Christ turned water into wine into a sumptuous 16th-century Venetian banquet. More than 130 figures fill the triple-arched classical setting — including portraits of Veronese himself, Titian, Tintoretto, and various European royals playing music in the foreground. Seized by Napoleon in 1797, the painting now hangs in the Louvre directly opposite the Mona Lisa, a silent rival filling the entire facing wall.

Exhibition Venue

Louvre Museum

Paris, France