Girona and its area of influence played a key role in attracting and promoting art from northern France that was starting to become known across the continent as of the early 13thcentury. At the Art Museum, we can admire pieces from the Master Bartomeu of Girona’s studio, the first well-known sculptor who introduced the Gothic style in Catalonia. The recently restored set formed by the mid-13thcentury Calvary, originally from the Girona Cathedral, and the tympanum from the priests’ hospital in the same city, are clear examples of this style.
As of 1320-1340, alabaster from Beuda (Garrotxa) becomes the preferred material to use when sculpting religious statuary. A good example of this is Our Lady of Hope, by an anonymous artist that had been in the Saint Francis of Girona convent, which no longer exists. Other samples are fragments of statues from the Holy Sepulcher from the San Félix Basilica, attributed the studio of the royal masters Aloi de Montbrai and Jaume Cascalls. We mustn’t forget a magnificent relief by Pere Oller, who was also the artist behind Cardinal Anglesola’s tomb, in the Girona See, among other work.
Aside from a good sampling of tombs and reliefs, figures and capitals from Girona-based stone-carvers’ studios, the museum holds other relevant and exceptional pieces, such as the glassmaker’s work table that was used to make stained-glass windows for the apse and surrounding area of the Cathedral of Girona. It is one of a few items still in existence that provide this type of material evidence still preserved in Europe. The tables have been the subject of a study and monographic exhibition at the Art Museum.
The majestic Throne Room holds one of the most outstanding collections in Catalonia of altarpieces painted in the 15thcentury, such as the one from Saint Michael of Cruïlles, by Lluís Borrassà; the altarpiece of Our Lady of Canapost, by the homonymous master; the one from Saint Michael of Castelló d’Empúries, undertaken by Joan Antigó, Honorat Borrassà and Francesc Vergós I; the altarpiece from Sant Pere de Púbol, by Bernat Martorell; the one from Santa Cristina de Corçà, attributed to the Master from Olot; and the piety retable, by Jaume Cabrera, which came from Saint Catherine’s chapel, within the Sant Genís de Torroella de Montgrí parish.
