Madonna and Child with Angels

Lorenzo di Bicci, founder of a prolific Florentine painting dynasty that would span three generations, created this Madonna and Child with Angels in the conservative late Gothic style that dominated Florentine church commissions at the turn of the fifteenth century. The Virgin enthroned with attendant angels was the most standard format for central altarpiece panels, serving as the devotional focus of chapel and church interiors. Lorenzo's workshop, later continued by his son Bicci di Lorenzo, was among the most active in Florence during this transitional period between Gothic and Renaissance art.

Painted in egg tempera on panel with gold ground, the composition centers the enthroned Virgin in a stable pyramidal arrangement flanked by symmetrically placed angels. Lorenzo's style blends the solid Giottesque tradition with the decorative linear elegance of late Gothic Florentine painting.