Retablo with Scenes from the Life of the Virgin-The Resurrection

Pere Espallargues's Retablo panel depicting the Resurrection from the Life of the Virgin, painted around 1490 and now in the Hispanic Society of America, forms part of the same narrative retablo cycle as his Annunciation panel. The Resurrection — understood here as the culminating moment of Christ's life within a Marian retablo cycle — was among the most important narrative episodes in Christian devotional art, the triumphant reversal of the Crucifixion's tragedy that gave the entire Passion sequence its theological meaning. Espallargues worked within the Catalan painting tradition at a moment of intense Flemish influence, when the import of Netherlandish paintings and the activities of Flemish painters in Spain were transforming local artistic conventions. The Hispanic Society of America holds significant examples of Spanish medieval and Renaissance painting, and this panel is among the important examples of late fifteenth-century Catalan art in North American collections.

The Resurrection panel follows the traditional Spanish adaptation of Flemish compositional models: a rising Christ in mandorla or with banner, flanked by sleeping or fleeing soldiers, rendered with the bright, jewel-toned palette and confident linear clarity characteristic of the Catalan retablo workshop tradition.