Altarpiece of the Saints John Altarpiece of the Saints John The Altarpiece of the Saints John is a painting by Bernat Martorell conserved at the National Art Museum of Catalonia. The "Altarpiece of the Saints John" from Vinaixa was commissioned in 1432 from the Tarragona painter Ramon de Mur, but in the end it was painted by Martorell. The MNAC keeps most of the panels from this altarpiece. The main panel is kept at the Museu Diocesà de Tarragona, a side compartment is kept at the Musée Rolin d'Autun (France), and the whereabouts of another compartment is unknown. The two Saints John feature in the
Maestà The most famous example of the "Maestà" is the "Maestà with Twenty Angels and Nineteen Saints", an altarpiece comprising many individual paintings commissioned by the city of Siena in 1308 from the artist Duccio di Buoninsegna. The painting was installed in the city's cathedral on June 9, 1311. Although it took a generation for its effect truly to be felt, Duccio's "Maestà" set Italian painting on a course leading away from the hieratic representations of Byzantine art towards more direct presentations of reality. Creating this altarpiece assembled from many wood panels bonded together before painting was an arduous undertaking. The