Maestà (Duccio)

Common card · No. 339592

The Maestà, or Maestà of Duccio, is an altarpiece composed of many separate paintings commissioned from Duccio di Buoninsegna by the city of Siena in Tuscany in 1308 and is his major work. Duccio's Maestà was the first altarpiece to have both a front and back side. The front panels make up a large enthroned Madonna and Child with saints and angels, and a predella of the Childhood of Christ with prophets. The reverse showed, in forty-three small panels, scenes from the Life of the Virgin and the Life of Christ, and were topped by and additional six panels showing angels. Several panels are now dispersed or lost. The base of the panel has an inscription that reads (in translation): "Holy Mother of God, be thou the cause of peace for Siena and life to Duccio because he painted thee thus." Though it took a generation for its effect to be truly felt, Duccio's Maestà set Italian painting on a course leading away from the hieratic representations of the Italo-Byzantine style and towards more...

Read on Wikipedia · Image Duccio di Buoninsegna, Public domain