Retable of Saints Athanasius, Blaise, and Agatha

Master of Riglos · c. 1440–c. 1445

Medium

Tempera on panel

Original size

Christ on the Cross panel: 69.8 × 81.2 cm (27 1/2 × 32 in.); Coronation of the Virgin panel: 87.4 × 80.3 cm (34 7/16 × 31 5/8 in.); Scenes from the Life of Saint Blaise panel: 154.3 × 69.8 cm (60 3/4 × 27 1/2 in.); Saint Athanasius panel: 128.6 × 82 cm (50 11/16 × 32 5/16 in.); Scenes from the Life of Saint Agatha panel: 154.5 × 69.8 cm (60 7/8 × 27 1/2 in.); Overall: 206.1 × 226.9 cm (81 3/16 × 89 3/8 in.)

Currently held

Art Institute of Chicago

Movement

Italian Renaissance

This devotional altarpiece panel is a quiet masterpiece of Spanish Gothic painting, its gold ground glowing behind three holy figures rendered with the careful dignity of mid-fifteenth-century Aragonese devotion. The Master of Riglos is an anonymous painter identified by a group of works from the Kingdom of Aragon, active during a period when Spanish panel painting was absorbing influences from both the Italian Gothic tradition and the emerging Flemish realism filtering across Europe. His figures carry the elongated grace of the International Gothic style while the faces — particularly here — show a restrained psychological presence unusual in anonymous workshop production. The tempera medium, applied over gesso on wood panel, gives the saints their characteristic luminosity, with layered pigments building depth in the drapery folds. The altarpiece is believed to have originated in the Riglos region of Huesca province, where the artist takes his scholarly name, suggesting it was made for a local church or private chapel rather than a major civic commission. The hand-painted oil reproduction translates this centuries-old devotional object into a medium with greater tonal richness, preserving the compositional gravitas of the original while bringing the gold and jewel-toned robes to life on canvas.