Virgin and Child Enthroned with Saints Peter, Paul, John the Baptist, and Dominic and a Dominican Supplicant

For the Sienese atelier of Ugolino di Nerio the enthroned Virgin and Child descended directly from the Maestà of Duccio, the cathedral master whose workshop Ugolino carried on in the years around 1330. Encircled by Saints Peter, Paul, John the Baptist, and Dominic, the Queen of Heaven presents the child whom the Baptist would recognize as the Lamb of God, while the tiny Dominican supplicant kneeling at the foot of the throne marks the pinnacle as a commission of the Order of Preachers. The gold-ground panel, once part of a dismantled polyptych, preserves Byzantium’s gravity refashioned in Siena’s gentler, more human terms. The painting is held in the Art Institute of Chicago.