MASTER of Città di Castello

Italian painter. He is named after the Virgin and Child Enthroned with Saints (Pinacoteca Comunale, Città di CastelloGLOSSARY"castle", palace.), which may derive from a lost composition by Duccio di Buoninsegna. The painting is the earliest work of a corpus that also includes a dismembered polyptychGLOSSARYA painting (usually an altarpiece) made up of a number of panels fastened together. Some polyptychs were very elaborate, the panels being housed in richly carved and decorated wooden frameworks. Duccio's "Maestà" (1308-1311) is a well-known example. of the Virgin and Child (Museo dell'Opera del Duomo, Siena) and SS Augustine, Paul, Peter and Anthony Abbot (Pinacoteca Nazionale, Siena); a polyptych of the Virgin and Child with SS Francis, John the Evangelist, Stephen and Chiara (Pinacoteca Nazionale, Siena); and a third altarpieceGLOSSARYA picture or sculpture that stands on or is set up behind an altar. The term reredos is used for an ornamental screen or partition, not directly attached to the altar table but affixed to the wall behind it. A diptych is an altarpiece consisting of two panels, a triptych one of three panels, and a polyptych one of four or more panels. From the 14th to 16th century, the altarpiece was one of the most important commissions in European art; it was through the altarpiece that some of the most decisive developments in painting and sculpture came about. composed of a Virgin and Child (Statens Museum for Kunst, Copenhagen), St Peter and St John the Baptist (Yale University Art GalleryGLOSSARYan upper story, similar to a tribune, running along the side of a building and open on one side to the interior; in a church (basilica) above the side aisles, over the ambulatory (central-plan building) and also over the west end. The gallery was used to keep certain groups of worshippers apart (women, noblemen)., New Haven), as well as a St Francis (private collection). A Virgin and Child in Detroit (Institute of Art, Detroit) is a closely related shop work.

Although inclined to borrow heavily from Duccio and perhaps also from Segna di Bonaventura and Ugolino di Nerio, the Master had a distinctive style rooted in late 13th-century Sienese painting, and his works continued to reflect these origins well into the second decade of the 14th century. He was an interesting colourist, with a preference for subtle variations and pale hues, but his work had little impact on a younger generation in Siena.