# Madonna and Child with St Anne [View the canonical artwork record]() ## Artwork - Artist: [MASOLINO da Panicale]() - Date: 1401-1450 - Technique: Tempera on panel, 175 x 103 cm ## Commentary In Florence the new age of the Renaissance began in painting with a rather subdued work, devoid of any rhetoric: the Madonna and Child with Saint Anne executed by Masolino and Masaccio in 1424. This altarpiece depicting St Anne, Madonna and Child with five angels \(called Sant'Anna Metterza\) was originally painted for the Sant'Ambrogio Church in Florence. Deriving from the Tuscan dialect of the 13th and 14th centuries, the term Metterza means "she is in the third position", referring to such iconography where Anna, being mother and grandmother of Christ, appears in third position. The structure of this work is simple yet extraordinarily monumental. The succession of planes is compact and follows an upward direction, thus creating a pyramid shape. The composition can certainly attributed to Masaccio who executed only the Madonna and Child and the two angels \(the upper right-hand one, and the one looking down from on high\). St Anne and the other angels are the work of Masolino. A sense of grave dignity and power emanates from the faces, from the expressions and from the solidity of the bodies. In 1940 art critic Roberto Longhi attributed to Masolino the execution of part of the painting that previously was ascribed in its entirety to Masaccio by Vasari. ## Related artworks - [Annunciation to Zacharias \(detail\)]() - [Conversion and Beheading of Empress Faustina]() - [Crucifixion \(altar wall\)]() - [Crucifixion \(altar wall\)]() - [Feast of Herod \(detail\)]() - [Feast of Herod \(detail\)]() - [Founding of Santa Maria Maggiore]() - [Frescoes in the Cappella Brancacci \(right view\)]() - [God the Father Surrounded by Angels \(detail\)]() - [Healing of the Cripple and Raising of Tabatha \(left view\)]() - [Healing of the Cripple and Raising of Tabatha \(right view\)]() - [Healing of the Cripple \(detail\)]() ## Attribution [Web Gallery of Art]()