Virgin and Child with Saints and Two Angels

1465 · Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York

religious

Sano di Pietro was a popular and highly prolific Sienese painter and illuminator, whose workshop produced numerous devotional images of the Madonna and Child, frequently shown in bust-length and accompanied by saints and angels. In the present work the Christ Child holds a goldfinch symbolizing the Resurrection, while resting his left hand on the embroidered collar of the Virgin's dress. They are accompanied by Sts Jerome, Bernardino, John the Baptist, Anthony of Padua, and two angels.

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Virgin and Child with Saints and Two Angels

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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