Pinnacle with Angel

Niccolò di Segna's Pinnacle with Angel (c. 1340) is a fragment from the upper structure of a Gothic polyptych altarpiece, where angel figures typically adorned the pointed gables crowning the main panels. Niccolò, the son of the painter Segna di Bonaventura and a follower of Duccio's tradition, carried the Sienese school's elegant style into the mid-fourteenth century. Such pinnacle panels are often the sole surviving fragments of once-magnificent altarpiece ensembles.

Painted in egg tempera on gold ground within a pointed Gothic format, the angel figure is rendered with the delicate linearity characteristic of the Sienese school. The wings display careful feather detail, while the gold background is tooled with geometric patterns.