Giotto, eternal and angels, perhaps cornice of the baroncelli altarpiece

This fragment depicting God the Father, angels, and perhaps forming the cornice of the Baroncelli Altarpiece, dates from around 1328 and is now in the San Diego Museum of Art. The fragment was separated from the main polyptych at some point in the altarpiece's history and made its way to an American collection. Such decorative elements originally crowned the elaborate Gothic frames of major polyptych altarpieces, providing a complete architectural and visual setting for the central devotional images. The fragment provides evidence of the original, more extensive configuration of Giotto's Baroncelli commission.

The fragment shows the refined gold-ground technique and precise tempera painting characteristic of Giotto's workshop at its most accomplished. The figures, though small in scale, display the volumetric modeling and naturalistic expressions that distinguish Giotto's work from that of his predecessors. The elaborate tooling and punching of the gold background demonstrates the high level of decorative craftsmanship that accompanied major altarpiece commissions in Trecento Florence.