European Painting before 1900, Johnson Collection Panel from an
Altarpiece Panel from an altarpiece; companion to a panel in the
Philadelphia Museum of Art (EW1993-127-4a,b)Made in Barcelona,
Spain, Europe Pau Várgos, Spanish (Barcelona), died 1495 Oil and
tooled gold on panel |Purchased with the W. P. Wilstach Fund,
the George W. Elkins Fund, and bequest (by exchange) of Anne
Thomson in memory of her father, Frank Thomson, and her mother,
Mary Elizabeth Clarke Thomson, and with Museum funds, 1993| This
two-sided panel comes from a large altarpiece depicting saints
of the Franciscan order. The altarpiece was probably made for a
church in the Spanish province of Catalonia. The Franciscan
friar Saint Anthony of Padua holds a chalice with a grapevine, a
symbol of the Christian rite of Communion. Saint Anthony died in
Padua, Italy, but was originally from Coimbra in Portugal. Saint
Accursius was one of the first Franciscan martyrs. In 1219 he
was executed in Morocco for preaching the Christian religion in
the mai