Room 58

A small panel can contain several stages of a story. Follow the gestures and the changes of setting before looking for the title. Sienese painters gave these compact scenes a clear rhythm, often using bright colour and sharply readable groups. Several panels here came from the base of a larger altarpiece. Duccio’s Maestà stood on the high altar of Siena’s cathedral from 1311, with Mary and Christ at the centre of an extensive painted ensemble. Detached parts now let you look closely at stories originally read within that larger whole. Other painters in Siena continued and changed those approaches over the following generations.