Located in the church of San Bartolomé Church in Jávea, the altarpiece, completed in 1741 and destroyed in 1936 during the upheavals of the Spanish Civil War, was a notable example of Spanish High Baroque religious art.
This altar provided the principal liturgical focus of the church. Constructed in richly worked materials that were later burned and melted down for their metal content, it exemplified the Churrigueresque style, a late Baroque movement characterized by *horror vacui*—the deliberate filling of all available space with dense, elaborate ornamentation.
Architecturally, the altarpiece was organized into a clearly defined tiered structure. Horizontal divisions, known as *cuerpos*, were intersected by vertical sections, or *calles*, creating a coherent yet visually complex framework. This structure rose from a comparatively restrained stone base into an increasingly intricate superstructure, culminating in a dynamic upper section that visually echoed the curvature of the Gothic ribbed vaulting above.
A defining feature of the composition was the use of Solomonic, or twisted, columns. These were heavily decorated with carved vines and foliage, contributing to a sense of movement and vitality that is typical of the High Baroque aesthetic. Interspersed among these were *estípites*—distinctive pilasters shaped like inverted obelisks—which added to the vertical dynamism and theatricality of the design. Together, these elements created a richly textured and highly animated surface, emblematic of 18th-century Spanish ecclesiastical art.
The surviving photographic record, now preserved in the local museum in Jávea, provides valuable visual documentation of the altarpiece. It also captures adjacent features that were similarly lost, including the projecting organ pipes embedded in the wall and the balcony beneath them that once accommodated the organist. These elements formed part of an integrated liturgical and architectural ensemble, underscoring the scale of what was destroyed.
