NAVAS DE TOLOSA ALTARPIECE

POLYCHROME DECORATION 

After the last restoration work, almost all the original polychrome decoration is now visible. The altarpiece is almost entirely gilt with burnished gold applied over a very pale orange slip undercoat. This shiny surface is broken by the flesh tones and certain small details picked out in white, such as books, Christ's cloth of purity (also called perizoma), a few headdresses, etc..

Flesh tones are darker for men than they are for women and the figure of Christ. Wrinkles have been painted on some of the figures to give the impression they are older. Likewise, the colour of their hair is also different. 

The face of the altarpiece, which was re polychrome decorated in the XVII century, is decorated with a rhomboid patterned mesh with flowers inside each space that might well be an imitation of the pricked decoration normally used in Flemish altarpieces of the period.