Madonna and Child with Saints

Priamo della Quercia's Madonna and Child with Saints, painted around 1442 and now at the Metropolitan Museum of Art, is a rare documented work by this Sienese master who stands largely in the shadow of his more celebrated brother, the sculptor Jacopo della Quercia. Priamo's painting represents the Sienese school at a moment of productive tension between its inherited Byzantine-influenced tradition of hieratic, gold-ground devotional imagery and the naturalistic impulses arriving from Florence.

Tempera on panel with gold ground. The sacra conversazione arrangement places the enthroned Madonna centrally with saints flanking symmetrically. Drapery modelling shows awareness of volumetric form while the decorative Sienese line quality is maintained.