Saint Peter [left panel]

Grifo di Tancredi, a Florentine painter active in the early fourteenth century and associated with the circle of Cimabue, created this panel of Saint Peter as the left wing of a small devotional triptych around 1310. The work represents the transitional moment in Florentine painting when Byzantine conventions were beginning to yield to the revolutionary naturalism of Giotto. It is housed in the National Gallery of Art, Washington.

Executed in egg tempera on a gold-ground panel, this left wing displays the elongated proportions and linear drapery treatment characteristic of late Duecento Florentine practice. The saint's keys serve as an identifying attribute, rendered with careful attention against the tooled gold background.