Embrace at the Golden Gate

The Mestre de Retascón is an anonymous Aragonese painter active in the second half of the fifteenth century named for altarpiece works associated with the town of Retascón in Zaragoza province. His Embrace at the Golden Gate depicts the meeting of Joachim and Anne — the Virgin Mary's parents — at Jerusalem's Golden Gate after the angel announced Mary's miraculous conception to each separately. This apocryphal scene from the Protoevangelium of James was the standard visual symbol of the Immaculate Conception doctrine, and its prominence in Aragonese altarpieces reflects the strong Franciscan Immaculist theology cultivated in the Crown of Aragon.

The painter employs the Hispano-Flemish technique predominant in Aragon: oil over a prepared ground with careful attention to the material surfaces of Joachim's and Anne's garments. The Golden Gate is rendered as an architectural backdrop providing spatial context for the embrace that is the compositional and theological centre. The gold ground tradition is partially maintained in the halos while landscape and architectural elements indicate spatial depth.