Virgin and Child Enthroned with Two Angel

This Virgin and Child Enthroned with Two Angels by the Master of Varlungo represents late Duecento Florentine devotional painting at the moment when the city's artists were beginning to move beyond rigid Byzantine formulas. The Master of Varlungo, named after a church near Florence, worked in the circle influenced by Coppo di Marcovaldo and the young Cimabue. Now at the Yale University Art Gallery, this panel demonstrates the increasing scale and ambition of Tuscan Marian devotional images as altarpiece commissions grew in importance.

Painted in egg tempera with gold leaf on a prepared panel, the enthroned Virgin follows the traditional frontal composition with flanking angels. The modeling of faces and drapery shows greater three-dimensionality than earlier Byzantine-style works, with softer transitions and more naturalistic proportions emerging within the traditional format.