Saint Paul, Saint Matthieu, Saint Jude

Ramón Destorrents was a Catalan painter active in Barcelona in the mid-fourteenth century, one of the most important figures in Catalan Gothic painting and a collaborator with the Valencian master Ferrer Bassa. His panel of Saints Paul, Matthew, and Jude likely formed part of a larger polyptych altarpiece for a Barcelona church or chapel. The apostolic subjects — three of the twelve — reflect the standard altarpiece programme in which individual apostles were depicted as standing figures with their attribute and identifiable by inscription. Destorrents' style represents the Italianate strand of Catalan Gothic most fully developed under Avignonese French influence.

Destorrents works in the Catalan Gothic tradition with tempera and gold grounds, the three apostle figures rendered in the hierarchic, frontal manner of the period. Paul carries his sword and book, Matthew his gospel, Jude his club or book. The drapery shows the Italianate influence absorbed through the Avignonese connection — broad folds with soft transitional modelling rather than sharp linear definition.