Madonna and Child Enthroned with Angels and Saints

This painting, a small cuspidate altarpiece depicting the Madonna and Child with eight Angels and Sts Peter and Paul, is signed and dated.

The piece reveals all the qualities of this painter, who was particularly devoted to works destined for the private worship of rich noble and well-to-do families: the symmetrical, harmonious composition, the refined setting, the gentle chiaroscuro and the soft colours blending in with the gold are all characteristics that confirm Bernardo Daddi as an artist of a delicate, intimate painting rather than large, solemn, historico-religious representations.

In this work note the stage-like architecture of the throne, whose almost towering cusp takes up the shape of the whole composition, and the ample yet almost weightless mass of the Virgin in the highly traditional arrangement of angels and saints that had been in vogue since the thirteenth century.