Saint Michael Archangel

Pedro García de Benavarre was an Aragonese painter active in Huesca and Lleida, trained in the tradition of the Aragonese altarpiece workshops that combined Flemish technical methods with local Gothic compositional habits. His Saint Michael Archangel from around 1470 belongs to the tradition of the triumphant Michael trampling the defeated Satan — a warrior archangel type popular in Aragonese altarpieces that served both devotional and political functions, with Michael as the heavenly warrior figure whom secular rulers invoked as patron of military victory. García de Benavarre's version would have originally been part of a polyptych whose central panel or other lateral saints have since been separated.

García de Benavarre renders Michael in the elaborate tournament armour conventional in Iberian archangel imagery, paying careful attention to the metallic surfaces of breastplate, tassets, and helmet plumes. The defeated Satan beneath the archangel's feet is rendered as a dark, writhing figure contrasting with the luminous armour above. Wings are treated in the Spanish-Gothic manner: large, feathered, and colourful, often with alternating dark and light feathers.