Virgin and Child Enthroned

Battista di Biagio Sanguigni was a Florentine painter and illuminator who worked in the circle of Fra Angelico in the early fifteenth century. This 1419 Virgin and Child Enthroned reflects the devotional painting produced by Florentine workshops at the dawn of the Renaissance, when artists were beginning to explore naturalistic space and form while maintaining the gold-ground traditions of medieval altarpiece painting.

The tempera and gold on wood combines the traditional gold-ground format with early Renaissance figural modeling. The delicate rendering of the Virgin's features and the Christ Child shows the influence of Gentile da Fabriano and the International Gothic style.