Intérieur du Cénacle – Interior of the Caeneculum
Felix Bonfils
Description
Subject Matter:
This photograph represents a corner of the Cenacle (labeled at the bottom in English as “Caeneculum,” a misspelling of the Latin coenaculum), a structure in Jerusalem believed to be the site of the biblical Last Supper. The rib vaulting and classicizing columns indicate the building’s medieval, likely Gothic, origins--a fact which underscores the site's alignment with Christian traditions. The room is devoid of people and sparsely decorated, save for the foliate designs on the Greco-Roman column capitals. The walls, floors, vaults, and stairs are all composed of the same pale stone, which lends the image a fairly light and cheerful tone, if undercut by the general loneliness of the scene. A singular, unadorned doorway introduces a sense of the unknown into this otherwise bright picture as it forms a dark, rectangular void in almost the exact middle of the composition. Similar dark tones repeat in the freestanding and engaged columns as well as a tenebrous region in the left foreground, an adjacent room that lies just beyond a metal screen. This image is one of hundreds of photographs made throughout Bonfils's career which purport to document various landscapes, cityscapes, and people of the eastern Mediterranean.
Physical Description:
The photograph shows a sparse interior scene with a shallow staircase that leads up to an unadorned doorway. The light-colored stone fills much of the composition, but is interrupted by the dark, centrally placed doorway, the free-standing and engaged columns, and the unlit region in the left foreground.
Usage Rights:
If you are interested in using an image for a publication, please visit https://umma.umich.edu/request-image/ for more information and to fill out the online Image Rights and Reproductions Request Form.