圣芭芭拉祭坛画

This tall gold panel is Valencian work of the early 1400s, painted by Gonzalo Perez in the ornate International Gothic style then shared across the courts of Europe. In the centre stands Saint Barbara holding two things that tell her story: a martyr's palm, and a small tower. According to legend her pagan father shut her in a tower to keep suitors away, and had her killed when she turned Christian. Around her, eight smaller scenes walk through her life and death, with a Calvary above. It was made not for a great city but for the parish of a small mountain village in Aragon, Puertomingalvo, and only reached the Barcelona museum centuries later, its gold ground still built to catch and throw back the light of altar candles.