Mary Magdalene enthroned

Jaume Huguet's Mary Magdalene Enthroned is exceptional within his body of work: the enthroned format ordinarily reserved for the Virgin was here applied to the penitent saint, signalling a specific devotional emphasis on Magdalene's elevated spiritual status after her conversion. The commission likely came from a confraternity or guild chapel dedicated to the saint, possibly connected to the cloth trade, whose members identified with Magdalene's association with expensive ointments and rich fabrics. Huguet's late work shows increased technical refinement and a greater debt to Flemish naturalism in the drapery.

Huguet seats Magdalene on a marble throne against a gold damask ground, her crimson and green robes handled with elaborate fold patterns that display the full range of his oil-over-tempera layering technique. The ointment jar she holds is rendered with miniaturist precision — chased gold with visible lid detail.