Luca di Tommè

In 1348 the Black Death swept through Siena and killed perhaps half the city, among them, most likely, the great painters who had defined Sienese art. The Lorenzetti brothers simply vanish from the records that year. Into that emptied field stepped Luca di Tommè, a younger man who picked up the manner of the dead masters, the gold-ground grace of Simone Martini and the weight and feeling of Pietro Lorenzetti, and carried it forward for the next 40 years.

He is first documented in 1356, and by 1362 he had teamed up with an older painter, Niccolò di Ser Sozzo, on a large altarpiece of the enthroned Virgin now in Siena's picture gallery. The two hands blended so closely there that scholars still argue over which man painted what.

More than 50 works are given to him today, most of them altarpieces built the old Sienese way, in gold and glowing colour, at a time when nearby Florence was already moving toward something more solid and modern. His last dated painting comes from 1389, the year he is thought to have died.