Christ Blessing
by NARDO DI CIONE, Tempera and tooled gold on panel, 20 x 23 cm
Previously known only through a nineteenth-century engraving, this panel was discovered at a country auction in Dorset, England, in March 2000. Scholars then identified the panel as the missing pinnacle of Nardo di Cione’s altarpiece Virgin and Child with Saints, on view in the same museum. As the pinnacle to the larger panel, Christ Blessing would have been located directly above Virgin and Child with Saints.