Duccio: Maestà (1308-11)
Museo dell'Opera del Duomo, Siena
The Sienese Duccio di Buoninsegna was one of the most influential Italian artists of his time. His works include:
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✴the Rucellai Madonna (1285) for Santa Maria Novella, Florence. which is now in the Uffizi Gallery; and
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✴the double-sided Maestà (1308–11) for the Duomo, Siena, the front side of which is illustrated above.
Perugia
Madonna and Child (early 14th century)
A recent restoration has revealed that it was originally the central panel of a polyptych: this would have been one of the first polyptychs in Umbria. The commission was broadly contemporary with that of Duccio's polyptych for the Dominicans of Siena (the so-called Polyptych 28 in the Pinacoteca Nazionale, Siena - ca. 1306). In the Perugian panel, the Madonna points to the hands and feet of the Child, prefiguring His Crucifixion, while six praying angels look down from spandrels above the fictive semicircular frame. The naturalistic representation of the figures is closely related to that in Duccio’s famous Maestà (1308-11) from the Duomo, Siena.