Christ Blessing [middle panel]

Grifo di Tancredi painted this Christ Blessing as the central panel of a small portable triptych around 1310, flanked by saints on the wing panels. Such intimate devotional triptychs served private prayer in domestic settings or during travel, reflecting the growing demand for personal religious images in early Trecento Italy. The work was once part of the Andrew W. Mellon Collection, underscoring its importance as an early example of Florentine Gothic panel painting.

Executed in egg tempera on panel with gold ground, the frontal Christ raises his right hand in blessing while holding a gospel book in the left — a standard Byzantine-derived iconographic formula. The modeling of the face shows greater volumetric awareness than strictly Byzantine prototypes, reflecting Florentine innovations of the period.