Retable

The Master of Cubélls is an anonymous Catalan or Aragonese painter active in the fifteenth century, named for an altarpiece in the church of Cubélls in the Catalan Noguera district. His retable — the distinctive Catalan-Aragonese format for large multi-panel altarpieces with a central image, lateral narrative strips, and a predella — represents the standard vehicle for sacred imagery in parishes of the Crown of Aragon throughout the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries. The Catalan retable format was distinct from both the Italian polyptych and the Flemish winged altarpiece, maintaining the narrative strip organisation longer than any other European regional tradition.

The retable format requires organisation across multiple registers and compartments: a central devotional image, flanking panels with narrative scenes from the saint's life, and a predella with bust-length saints or further narrative. The Master works in the Catalan Gothic tempera tradition with gold grounds, using the spatial compression required by the narrative strip format to convey sequential scenes with clear legibility.