Our Lady of Mercy

Bonanat Zaortiga the Elder's Our Lady of Mercy, dated around 1430 and held in the Museu Nacional d'Art de Catalunya, depicts the Virgin of Mercy — Mary opening her mantle to shelter a group of kneeling worshippers within its protection. The image of the Mater Misericordiae was one of the most popular devotional types of the late medieval period, promoted especially by mendicant orders and confraternities of mercy. Zaortiga was active in Zaragoza and represents the Aragonese school of International Gothic painting, which synthesized French, Catalan, and Italian influences into a distinctive regional style in the first decades of the fifteenth century.

Zaortiga renders the Virgin with a monumental presence, her outspread mantle creating a sheltering arc over the small kneeling figures below. The gold ground frames the composition in the devotional manner. The figures sheltered under the mantle are differentiated by social status — clergy, nobility, laypeople — creating a universal image of divine protection.