Retable and Frontal of the Life of Christ and the Virgin

Spanish · 1396

Medium

Tempera and gold on panel

Original size

Retable: 257 × 669.9 cm (99 3/4 × 263 3/4 in.); Frontal: 116.3 × 290.9 cm (45 3/4 × 114 1/2 in.)

Currently held

Art Institute of Chicago

Movement

Medieval

Few works capture the devotional intensity of late medieval Iberian Christianity quite like this gilded altarpiece, where narrative scenes from the lives of Christ and the Virgin unfold in vivid, jewel-like panels against a shimmering gold ground. Created in Catalonia or Aragon toward the end of the fourteenth century, the work sits at the peak of the International Gothic style in Spain — a moment when artists were synthesising French elegance, Italian spatial sophistication, and a distinctly Iberian taste for rich, flattened ornament. The tempera technique, layered over gesso on wood panel, produces colours of extraordinary depth and clarity, while the applied gold leaf creates an otherworldly luminosity that would have glowed by candlelight in its original liturgical setting. The combination of retable and frontal — the vertical panel above the altar and the horizontal one facing the congregation — means this is a rare surviving example of a complete altarpiece ensemble. The work entered the Art Institute of Chicago's medieval collection and remains one of the museum's most significant examples of Spanish Gothic panel painting. Our hand-painted oil reproduction honours the original's hierarchical compositions and burnished splendour, giving you an artwork that carries the weight and warmth of a tradition stretching back six centuries.