Madonna and Child with Saints Philip and Agnes

Donato de' Bardi's Madonna and Child with Saints Philip and Agnes, dated around 1425 and now in the Metropolitan Museum of Art, is a work by a Piacenza-born painter who worked primarily in Liguria, particularly Genoa, where he was active from the 1420s. De' Bardi represents the regional Ligurian school that absorbed influences from Lombardy and Tuscany while maintaining local characteristics. The saints flanking the Virgin — Philip the Apostle and Agnes the Roman martyr — suggest a commission related to their feast days or patron saints of the donors. The polyptych format was standard for Ligurian altarpiece production in this period.

De' Bardi employs gold grounds with the soft, rounded figure style of the northern Italian Gothic tradition, showing Lombard influence in the warm flesh tones and gentle modeling. The saints are characterized through their standard iconographic attributes with clear narrative legibility. The three-panel format creates a devotional symmetry centered on the Virgin and Child.