Attributed to Lippo Memmi

Sienese painting in the first half of the 14th century was largely a family business. Lippo Memmi's father, Memmo di Filippuccio, was a painter, his brother Federico worked in the same shop, and all of them followed closely the graceful manner of Simone Martini, the leading painter of Siena. Their hands can be very hard to tell apart, and pictures have moved from one of their names to another for centuries.

Attributed to Lippo Memmi is the label a museum uses when its specialists think a panel is probably by Lippo himself, while no signature or document proves it. It claims more than workshop of Lippo Memmi, which would place the panel among his assistants, and less than a plain attribution to him.

The best-known case of a shifting name is in San Gimignano, a hill town near Siena. Giorgio Vasari, the 16th-century biographer of artists, gave the scenes from the life of Christ in its main church, the Collegiata, to a painter he called Barna. Most scholars now believe Barna never existed, and many give the cycle to Lippo and his workshop.