Duccio di Buoninsegna (Italian, Sienese, active ca. 1278–1318)
Tempera and gold on wood; Overall, with engaged frame, 11 x 8 1/4 in. (27.9 x 21 cm); painted surface 9 3/8 x 6 1/2 in. (23.8 x 16.5 cm)
Purchase, Rogers Fund, Walter and Leonore Annenberg and The Annenberg Foundation Gift, Lila Acheson Wallace Gift, Annette de la Renta Gift, Harris Brisbane Dick, Fletcher, Louis V. Bell, and Dodge Funds, Joseph Pulitzer Bequest, several members of The Chairman's Council Gifts, Elaine L. Rosenberg and Stephenson Family Foundation Gifts, 2003 Benefit Fund, and other gifts and funds from various donors, 2004 (2004.442)
Perhaps painted about 1300, this exquisite Madonna and Child inaugurates the grand tradition in Italian art of envisioning these sacred figures in terms appropriated from real life. The parapet—among the earliest of its kind—connects the fictive world of the painting with that of the viewer. As with his younger Florentine contemporary, Giotto, Duccio redefined the way in which we relate to the picture: not as an ideogram or abstract idea, but as an analogue to human experience.
Duccio was the founder of Sienese painting, and his influence extended as far north as Paris. There is no record of the Madonna and Child prior to its acquisition by Count Gregori Stroganoff in the late nineteenth century. The damaged areas along the bottom of the original frame are from lighted candles set in front of the painting.
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