Retaulet amb la Mare de Déu i sants

Jaume Huguet was the leading painter in fifteenth-century Catalonia, whose atelier produced most of Barcelona's major altarpieces between the 1450s and 1490s. The retable with the Virgin and saints reflects the Catalan altarpiece tradition: a large central image of the enthroned Virgin flanked by compartments with individual saints, all set under elaborate Gothic tracery frames. Huguet combined the Flemish naturalism he absorbed through contact with Lluís Dalmau — who had studied in Bruges — with a distinctly Iberian taste for gold and decorative richness.

Huguet's technique uses oil glazes over a tempera underpainting, building deep colour saturation in the robes while retaining the gold-ground tradition for the background. His figures display the characteristic Catalan broadening of facial types toward a more solid, sculptural presence compared to his French or Flemish contemporaries.