The piece, of an exceptional nature, will be presented next Tuesday, November 2nd, at 7 pm, in the Museum’s auditorium.
This Gothic panel was part of the altarpiece that decorated the chapel that the monks of La Murtra erected, in the late 15th century, in honor of Saint Sebastian as a result of a plague epidemic. It is very curious that this piece arrives in our city when we are still suffering from the Covid pandemic19.
Two parts of the original altarpiece are currently known: the predella, which belongs to the Museum’s collections, and the central table that has just been acquired. The side panels are lost and we do not know what they looked like, as those that can be seen in the photographs that have survived to the present day are, by the way, clearly later than the Gothic period.
The Museum of Badalona will open an exhibition at the beginning of next year, in which the two original pieces will be able to be seen – central table and predella -, as well as the reproduction of other representations of Saint Sebastian of the same time, such as the altarpiece of Sant Sebastià i Santa Tecla in the cathedral of Barcelona or the altarpiece of the Constable in the chapel of Santa Àgata, also in Barcelona. The exhibition will be accompanied by a series of lectures on various aspects related to the gothic panel and the monastery of Sant Jeroni: the possible author of the altarpiece, the monastery at the end of the 15th century, the music of the Jeromes, the epidemics in the medieval times and the devotion to Saint Sebastian.