Madonna mit Kind, mit den Heiligen Laurentius und Julian

Gentile da Fabriano painted this small gold-ground panel in Florence around 1423, the same year he finished his dazzling Adoration of the Magi, now in the Uffizi. It was probably made for a private family chapel, and it still sits in its original frame, a set of spiralling columns rising into a pointed Gothic arch topped with gilded leaves. On the left stands Saint Lawrence in a deacon's robe, holding the iron grill on which he was martyred. On the right is Saint Julian. Gentile was among the most admired painters in Italy at that moment, working in an old and luxurious Gothic manner of gold and fine pattern just as younger Florentines like Masaccio were starting to push painting toward solid space and plain daylight.