Episodes from the Lives of Mary Magdalen and Saint John the Baptist

Jaume Serra's Episodes from the Lives of Mary Magdalen and Saint John the Baptist, dated around 1400 and now in the Museo del Prado, is a work by one of the most important Catalan Gothic painters, active in Barcelona and Zaragoza in the second half of the fourteenth century and into the early fifteenth. Serra and his brother Pere were among the dominant figures of the Catalan school before the Valencian International Gothic transformed regional painting. This altarpiece panel presents narrative scenes from two of the most popular hagiographic subjects — Mary Magdalen the penitent and John the Baptist the forerunner — in the refined Catalan Gothic style influenced by Siena and Paris.

Serra employs the gold ground and the refined, decorative figure style of Catalan Gothic, with elongated figures, clear linear drapery, and careful narrative organization of the scenes. The figures are characterized with expressive faces within the idealized conventions of the style. Haloes are elaborately tooled.