Altar frontal from La Seu d'Urgell or of The Apostles

The frontal, the item covering the front of the altar, stands out for the quality of its bright colours and because it illustrates some of the characteristics of composition in Romanesque art, such as bilateral symmetry, abstraction of the background, with no reference to space or context, and the unnatural geometrical treatment of form to be observed in the folds of the clothing.

[2] The composition is presided by the Maiestas Domini, or Christ in Majesty, represented in a double mandorla, typical of earlier Carolingian art.

The Apostles figure in the lateral compartments, arranged in tiered pyramids, an original compositional formula, although it was already known in the art of the Early Empire and also appears in the famous 11th-century Romanesque bibles of Rodes and Ripoll.

Both the image of Christ and the quality of the yellow and red used and even the bordering on the frame are very similar to those on the frontal from Sant Martí d’Ix,[3] which probably came from the same workshop.

The work shows similarities, especially with regard to colors and borders, to the frontal of Saint Martin of Ix, indicating that probably they are from the same author or workshop.

The Frontal exhibited at the Romanesque rooms of Museu Nacional d'Art de Catalunya , in Barcelona.