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Lluís Dalmau, Decapitación de san Baudilio / The Beheading of Saint Baudilus. Egg tempera and gilding on wood,  152.5 x 101.5 x 9.5 cm (circa 1448).  251882-000. Museu Nacional D’Art de Catalunya, Barcelona, Spain. 

Side compartment from the altarpiece of Saint Baudilus. The panel with the Nativity and the upper panel with Saint John the Evangelist are kept in the MNAC. Most of the panels from this altarpiece are kept in a factitious set in the Cathedral of Tarragona. From the former gothic main altarpiece of the church of Sant Baldiri in Sant Boi de Llobregat (Baix Llobregat).

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Juan de Juanes, El Salvador con la Eucaristía /  Christ the Saviour with the Eucharist. Oil on panel, 73 x 40 cm.  (ca. 1545-1550).  P00844. Museo Nacional del Prado, Madrid, Spain. 

The panel was part of the tabernacle of the high altar in the church of the Birth of the Virgin in Fuente de la Higuera (Valencia), hence the elaborate use of gold in the backgrounds and on the back of the panel, which is polychrome and deploy the sgraffito technique. This is thought to be Juanes’ first depiction of the figure of Christ. It reveals the influence of the image by Vicente Macip, the artist’s father, executed around 1525 for Valencia cathedral. 

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Juan de Juanes, Entierro de San Esteban /  The Burial of Saint Steven. Oil on panel,  160 cm x 123 cm (ca. 1562).  P00842. Museo Nacional del Prado, Madrid, Spain.

This composition is similar to that of the Burial of Christ, in a landscape with monuments that recall the city of Rome. It is inspired by the Acts of the Apostles (8, 2). Juanes endows his figures with theatrical, almost declamatory gestures, which are accentuated by soft, down-toned forms adapted to a religion that insists more on devotional aspects, on capturing the feelings of the faithful and provoking an emotional response. Of undoubted interest is the portrait of the patron of this work, Juan de Aguiló —although this was formerly considered a self-portrait by the artist— in the same space as the holy characters. He looks at the believer, who identifies with him. This work was made for the altarpiece of the church of San Esteban in Valencia, along with four others from the life of that saint (P00838, P00839, P00840 and P00841) and The Last Supper (P00846).

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Lluís Dalmau, Virgen de los Consellers / Virgin of the Consellers.  Oil on oak wood,  316 x 312.5 x 32.5 cm (1443-1445).  015938-000. Museu Nacional d’Art de Catalunya, Barcelona, Spain. 

The prestige attached to Burgundian courtly culture and the painter Jan van Eyck explain why in 1431 King Alfons the Magnanimous sent his official painter, the Valencian Lluís Dalmau, to Flanders, to learn the new realist language at first hand. In 1443, Dalmau was commissioned to paint this altarpiece for the chapel of the City Hall. This work was a breakthrough in Catalonia on account of the format, the technique used, as it was painted in oil, and the skilful illusionism of a figurative space in which that year's five councillors, painted from life, are represented on the same scale as the Virgin and the Saints.

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Bernat Martorell, Martirio de Santa Eulalia / Martyrdom of Saint Eulalia.  Tempera and gold leaf on wood,  132,3 x 93,2 x 11,2 cm (1442-1445).  064041-000. Museu Nacional d’Art de Catalunya, Barcelona, Spain. 

Compartment of an altarpiece dedicated to Saint Eulalia. The MNAC keeps three more compartments from the same work. Provenance unknown.Tempera and gold leaf on wood

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Juan Correa de Vivar,  Descendimiento de la Cruz /  Descent from the Cross. Oil on wood, 225 x 178 cm. (ca. 1545).  P06996. Museo Nacional del Prado. 

This is considered one of Correa's finest works. The balance of its careful composition recalls the art of Jean de Bourgogne (Ca. 1470-1534) and Antonio Comontes (Ca. 1520). Its size and format suggest that it may have been part of the altar at one of the Toledo churches disentailed in the nineteenth century. It was part of the collection of the Infante Don Sebastián Gabriel de Bourbon (1811-1875).

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Juan de Juanes, Ecce Homo. Oil on wood, 83 x 62 cm. (ca. 1570). P00848. Museo Nacional del Prado, Madrid, Spain. 

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Fernando Yáñez de la Almedina: Cabeza de Cristo / Head of Christ.  Oil on wood,  41.9 × 30.5 cm. (ca. 1506).  2014.149. The Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York. 

Fernando Yáñez belonged to the generation of Spanish painters who spent time in Italy and returned with a new vision of painting and the position of the artist as a creative genius rather than mere craftsman. This picture dates shortly after Yáñez returned to Valencia after working with Leonardo da Vinci in Florence. The delicate play of light across the face and the description of the curling hair and beard reflect that experience. So too does the mesmerizing expression and distant gaze of Christ, making this a particularly effective painting for private devotion.

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Juan de Flandes: Cristo apareciendo ante su madre / Christ Appearing to His Mother. Oil on wood, 63.5 x 38.1 cm (ca. 1496). 22.60.58. The Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York.

Probably trained in Bruges, Juan de Flandes immigrated to Spain to serve at the court of Isabella of Castile. In this painting he suppressed his own individual style and closely copied one of the panels in Rogier van der Weyden’s Triptych of the Virgin (Gemäldegalerie, Berlin), which had been owned by Isabella’s father, King Juan II. The spiritual power and artistic status of Rogier’s original could have prompted Isabella to order an exact copy. The queen bequeathed her version to her burial site, the Capilla Real, Granada, where the copy’s center and left panels remain to this day.

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Pablo Esquert: Ecce Homo. Oil on wood, 118 x 100,5 cm. (ca. 1550). Bilboko Arte Ederren Museoa, Bilbao, Spain. 

The artist of this work, a painter of Flemish origin, was brought to Spain from Flanders by Martín de Gurrea, duke of Villahermosa. His real surname was Schepers, although in Spain he was known as Esquert and as Micer Pablo.

This panel of Ecce Homo follows the passage from the Gospel according to St Matthew that describes the episodes in Christ's trial, the crown of thorns and the jest of giving him a sceptre of cane. Pontius Pilate pronounced the words "ecce homo" (behold the man) when he presented Jesus Christ, scourged by a soldier, to the crowds. This theme was preceded by Isaiah's message, in which the future Messiah was described as a "Man of Sorrow". It is curious to note that Pilate is depicted as an old man with characteristic features that make us think it could be a portrait of the person who commissioned the painting or else a self-portrait by Esquert, who is reported to have been a judge before devoting himself to painting and who died at the age of sixty-six. The age of the person portrayed and the fact that he occupied the place of Pilate in the painting seem to bear out these facts.

Esquert began his training under the influence of Flemish Mannerism but in Spain was inspired by Luis de Morales' Ecce Homo. Both tendencies can indeed be traced in this panel: the models and the colouring in shades of blue, red and green recall Morales' paintings of the same subject kept at the Hispanic Society in New York and the Academy of San Fernando in Madrid, while the influence of the work Jesus Presented to the People by the Flemish artist Quentin Metsys hanging in the Doge's Palace in Venice is indisputable.  [I.M.]

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Diego de la Cruz: Cristo de Piedad / Christ of Mercy. Oil on wood, 84,5 x 71 cm. (ca. 1485). Bilboko Arte Ederren Museoa, Bilbao, Spain. 

In this work created for the church of Torre de los Molinos, a town in the province of Palencia, Christ is portrayed as the Man of Sorrows, a mystic representation that was usually placed in the centre of the predella in Gothic altarpieces. His image stands out against a golden and polychrome ground, in imitation of the rich fabrics of the period, above which we read the Latin inscription "I am the way, the truth, and the life." The mantle framing the figure presents angular pleats in Flemish style, in a vitreous red produced by the use of a lacquered pigment.

But the most remarkable feature is the quasi-scientific study of the human figure, in which the bone structure and muscles are faithfully represented by means of blended colours and a careful shaping, taking great advantage of the technical qualities of oil painting. The painter succeeded in capturing the effect by means of which shaded areas occasionally receive reflected light from their surroundings, as we can see in the lower edge of Christ's left hand and arm.

Diego de la Cruz, whose artistic personality came to be defined by his only signed work, Christ of Mercy with Mary and St John, kept in the Prado Museum, is one of the most outstanding representatives of Hispano-Flemish painting. He co-worked with Gil de Siloé decorating altarpieces, and they produced outstanding works such as the retable of Miraflores charterhouse in Burgos.  [J.L.M.G.]

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Luis de Morales: Ecce Homo. Oil on wood, 82,7 x 57,7 cm. (ca. 1570). Museu Nacional d’Art de Catalunya. 

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Paolo de San Leocadio: Lamentación sobre Cristo muerto / Mourning over the Dead Christ. Tempera, oil and gilding on wood; 93,3 x 69 cm. (ca. 1507). Museu Nacional d’Art de Catalunya. 

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Juan de Juanes: San Esteban conducido al martirio /  Saint Stephen led to his Martyrdom. Oil on Panel, 160 x 123 cm (c. 1562). Museo Nacional del Prado. 

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Pedro Berruguete: Aparición de la Virgen a una comunidad de dominicos. Óleo sobre tabla, 130 x 86 cm (1493-1499). Museo Nacional del Prado

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Francisco de Zurbarán: El Salvador bendiciendo. Óleo sobre lienzo, 100 x 78 cm. (1638). Museo Nacional del Prado.

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Luis de Morales: La Virgen de la leche. Óleo sobre tabla de roble, 38 x 28 cm (1560-1565). Museo Nacional del Prado.