The work, complete with its original wooden base, was purchased by the Cassa di Risparmio delle Provincie Lombarde in 1959 together with Et Angelus Domini custodiebat domum by Giannino Castiglioni. Both sculptures were bought at the biennial of religious art held in Milan at the Angelicum, a Franciscan cultural centre founded 1939 in connection with the church of Sant’Angelo, which involved some of the leading intellectuals and artists of the time in an effort to promote broad cultural debate of a religious character. It became an important point of reference for the city in the immediate post-war period.

The Biennale d’Arte Sacra per la Casa occupied an important place in the activities of the Angelicum from 1953 to 1963. Designed to offer the public a broad overview of contemporary Italian religious art for the home, this important event presented works of various schools and illustrious artists such as Umberto Lilloni, Trento Longaretti, Fiorenzo Tomea, Aldo Carpi and Carlo Carrà. The Cassa di Risparmio delle Provincie Lombarde supported the Angelicum’s activities by making purchases on a regular basis as from the first biennial in 1953, when the low-relief work Fractio Panis by Francisco Messina was bought for the collection.

The sculpture is a partial replica of the figure of Saint Thomas in the Last Supper produced in silver by the sculptor for Oslo Cathedral in 1930. The work in the round, with figures two-thirds life size, was commissioned by the Milanese collector Francisco Pasquinelli.

The smaller sized version in the Cariplo Collection is a casting of excellent workmanship that retains its original patina. The artist’s particular attention to the material aspects of the technical reproduction of his works is attested in numerous passages of his autobiography, published in Milan in 1953, where the lost wax process is described in detail.

The artist presents a vividly realistic image of the gaunt apostle, the head sunken between the shoulders, the elbows resting firmly on the table, and the half-closed eyes looking up with an expression of doubt and incredulity. With no sacrifice of realistic investigation as regards facial expression, Minerbi attributes symbolic meaning to the figures of the Last Supper alluding to their spiritual nature. In particular, Thomas, the apostle who questioned the Resurrection of Jesus, is transfigured into the “living image of the doubt and incredulity that exhaust the spirit and shrink the body”. It was the sculptor himself, in his autobiography, that offered this reading of his art, developed with constancy and consistency in close study from life informed by a symbolic message of universal significance.