The Virgin of the Catholic Monarchs

There is no document that dates this panel, so the Prado dates it by looking. The clothes the royal family wears could not have been worn before 1490. The monastery it was painted for, Santo Tomas in Avila, was finished in 1493. And prince Juan, kneeling behind his father, looks about 13 to 15, which fits a boy born in the summer of 1478. Those three observations give the bracket the museum prints, between 1491 and 1493, and nothing narrower is established. Ferdinand and Isabella kneel on either side of the Virgin's throne with two of their children and two Dominican friars, under the two saints of the order. The technique is mixed, tempera and oil together on wood, and the tiled floor running back between the two groups is laid out in pink, green and white squares.