Pietro Lorenzetti, Madonna and Child

1340s, tempera on wood, 84 x 58.7 cm.; Inventory MCF-LOE 1933-22

This painting of the Madonna and Child was formerly the central panel of a polyptych --now dispersed among various collections and Italian as well as non-Italian museums—which had at its sides the figures of Santa Margherita, Santa Caterina, a Martyred Bishop Saint, and St. James the Greater, and from which there have survived two cusps with a Martyred Saint and a Hermit Saint.

Recognised since the early twentieth century as a work by the famous Sienese painter Pietro Lorenzetti, it was then acquired by Loeser at Pontassieve, near Florence. This attribution was contested in following years, until it was finally confirmed by art historical scholarship, which tends to date the painting to around 1345, as a masterpiece of the elaboration of Giotto's work, typical of the final years of Lorenzetti's activity.