Madonna col Bambino in trono tra i Santi Paolo, Lucia, Caterina d'Alessandria e Pietro; i Santi Cristoforo e Antonio abate Siena

Artist: Maestro di Panzano
Current location: Museo di San Donato - Collezione di Banca MPS
Original location: Oratorio dei Santi Vincenzo e Anastasio

DESCRIPTIVE INFORMATION

dimensions
54 x 57 cm

The Enthroned Madonna nursing the Child between Saints Lucia, Paolo, Caterina and Pietro; on the sides, San Cristoforo and Sant’Antonio Abate. In the central cusp, the Trinity; in the lateral cusps, the Announcing Angel and the Annunciated Virgin. Above, within two circles, the Prophet Jeremiah and the Prophet Daniel.
In the little step, Christ passes between the four Evangelists. The panel, coming from the Sienese Church of Saints Vincenzo and Anastasio (Contrada of the Istrice), seems to have been conceived by the anonymous painter as the precious goldsmith's objects that came out of the workshops of the most skilled Sienese goldsmiths during the 14th century: Relief motifs, made of gypsum plaster, simulate the precious effect of the embossed sheets of chalices and reliquaries, while the swarming texture of the punch decorations that adorns the haloes of the saints, the throne of the Virgin and the edges of the individual figured squares in a lesser tone, the richness of the tracery and chisels that were to characterize the furnishings of the finest workmanship. Despite the substantial cost-effectiveness of the means used (wood, tempera, plaster, gold leaf), the presence of references to objects of a more noble execution ensured the owner of the work the possession of a product that came to the eye and mind of the person concerned. to purchase a high material value. The anonymous artist's painting is characterized by the nervous development of the drawing which is accompanied by a marked taste for the charged and pungent expressions of the characters: note the sudden flicker of the fluttering cloaks of Saint Christopher and the Child Jesus perched on his shoulders I find, in the right compartment of the small painting, the severe and frowning face of the Sant'Antonio abbot. The descriptive minutia and the physiognomic exasperation of the characters indicate the substantially popular culture of this anonymous artist: working on the 14th century glimpse the 'Maestro di Panzano' seems to move halfway between the style proper to the works of Bartolo di Fredi, mindful of the examples of Simone Martini, and the results of the late Gothic painting by Taddeo di Bartolo.