The Marriage of the Virgin

Gregorio di Cecco was a Sienese painter active in the early fifteenth century, a follower of Taddeo di Bartolo and connected to the conservative Sienese late Gothic tradition that persisted long after the Florentine revolution of Masaccio. His Marriage of the Virgin — depicting the ceremony at the Temple in which Joseph's flowering rod identified him as Mary's destined husband — was a standard Marian cycle subject that appeared in altarpieces and fresco cycles throughout central Italy. Gregorio's version maintains the decorative elegance of the Sienese Gothic while introducing modest spatial depth.

Gregorio employs tempera with gold grounds in the Sienese manner, the figures arranged in the ceremonial procession that is standard for this subject. The high priest joining the hands of Mary and Joseph occupies the compositional centre, with the rejected suitors flanking and occasionally breaking their flowering rods in frustration. The palette is typically Sienese — soft pinks, blues, and greens — with decorative gold tooling throughout.