Altarpiece of Saint John the Baptist and Saint Stephen

The Master of Badalona — an anonymous Catalan painter identified from a set of works including this altarpiece — was working in the Barcelona area around 1410–1420, in the International Gothic style that was then the dominant idiom across Catalonia. The Altarpiece of Saint John the Baptist and Saint Stephen pairs two saints who shared the feast of December 26 (Stephen) and June 24 (John), and their combination may reflect a double dedication or the commissioning patron's double name-day devotion. Catalan altarpiece painting of this period shows strong Franco-Flemish influence filtered through local Valencian and Aragonese traditions.

The altarpiece combines gold-ground panels in the upper registers with narrative scenes of the saints' lives in the predella — the standard Catalan altarpiece structure of this period. Figure style shows the elegant elongation of International Gothic, softened Flemish influence in the faces. The Baptist's narrative episodes — birth, desert life, beheading — and Stephen's stoning are rendered in reduced scale appropriate to the predella format.