Two Magi

Part of the large altarpiece for Santo Tomás in Ávila executed for Torquemada in the 1490s, this panel depicts two of the Three Magi approaching with gifts for the newborn Christ. The Epiphany narrative—dramatizing non-Jewish recognition of Christ's divinity—carried particular resonance in late fifteenth-century Spain, where the question of who constituted a true Christian had become urgently political following the 1492 expulsions. The Magi are depicted with rich textiles and courtly bearing appropriate to royal visitors acknowledging a greater sovereign.

The two Magi's sumptuous robes are treated with Flemish descriptive precision, each fabric pattern individually observed and rendered with distinct texture and luminosity. Berruguete differentiates the figures through costume and physiognomy, giving each king a specific ethnic type reflecting the traditional identification of the three as representing the three known continents.