Everlasting Father

Juan Rexach's Everlasting Father — God the Father enthroned in glory — was among the most theologically demanding subjects in late medieval iconography, requiring the painter to represent the unrepresentable First Person of the Trinity. The subject appeared as the crowning image of altarpiece programmes, positioned at the apex of the carved retable framework to symbolise divine sovereignty over the entire sacred programme below. Rexach follows the standard Valencian convention of depicting God as an aged bearded patriarch in papal-style vestments holding an orb.

God the Father is enthroned within a mandorla of golden seraphim rendered in the gold-tooled technique Rexach inherited from the Valencian Gothic tradition. The papal vestments — tiara, cope, and pontifical gloves — are painted with the meticulous fabric detail of his Flemish-influenced oil technique against the saturated red of the throne's cushions.