Madonna and Child with Saint Catherine of Siena and a Carthusian Donor

The Virgin, portrayed as the Madonna of Humility, is seated on a tiled pavement, surrounded by incised golden rays. The Virgin presents the Christ Child to Saint Catherine of Siena and a kneeling monk, who probably represents the donor. A Dominican nun, Saint Catherine bears a sheaf of lilies symbolizing her chastity. The halo around her head is that of a beata, suggesting that this painting was produced prior to her canonization in 1461. The kneeling figure is a monk of the Carthusian order and possibly represents Stefano Maconi, who was a companion of Saint Catherine and associated with her cult. Maconi served as prior of the Carthusian monastery of Pavia near Milan between 1411 and 1424. The panel has been associated with Cristoforo Moretti, a Cremonese painter who worked in Milan in the first half of the fourteenth century, and Giorgio de Mangano, a painter documented as working at the Carthusian monastery of Pavia between 1426 and 1434, and has affinities with the style of Donato de' Bardi, as well as Milanese illuminators of the mid-fifteenth century.