Birth of the Virgin

1448 · University of Michigan Museum of Art, Ann Arbor

religious

This panel was part of a predella consisting of five scenes from the life of the Virgin. The predella was commissioned in 1448 from Sano di Pietro for an existing altarpiece in the Capella dei Signore in the Palazzo Pubblico in Siena. It is assumed that this altarpiece is identical with that painted by Simone Martini around 1326, and now dispersed in various collections.

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About the Artist

Sano Di Pietro

1406 – 1481

Italian painter and illuminator, active in Siena, where he was pupil and follower of Sassetta. . In 1428 he was listed in the guild of painters in Siena just before Sassetta. The same year he was paid for gilding and colouring a Baptism (untraced), possibly Sassetta's design for the Siena Baptistery font made in 1427. In 1432 he assessed Sassetta's Virgin and Child with Saints (the Madonna of the Snow; Florence, Pitti), and after Sassetta's death in 1450, Sano completed works left unfinished by him, including the fresco of the Coronation of the Virgin over the Porta Romana (1458–66), Siena, and the St Francis (Siena, Pinacoteca Nazionale). He painted many scenes from the life of St Bernardino, including St Bernardino Preaching in Siena Cathedral.

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