Workshop of the Memmi family

In a Sienese painting shop of the 14th century, one panel passed through many hands. Someone prepared the wood and the gesso, someone laid the gold leaf, someone tooled the haloes and borders with small metal punches, and the master kept the main figures for himself. The Memmi family, a father and his sons, ran such a shop in Siena, and one of the sons, Lippo Memmi, was the brother-in-law of Simone Martini, the most admired painter in the city. The two households worked side by side.

The label Workshop of the Memmi family follows the Louvre, which files such a panel under the family name alone. Specialists agree that it came out of this shop and still divide over the hand, between Lippo and Simone himself. The gold can answer only the first question. Erling Skaug, a Norwegian conservator who spent years photographing the punched patterns of Tuscan gold grounds, found that each workshop kept its own set of punches, shared by everyone who worked in it. The same tools turn up in panels given to Simone and in panels given to the Memmi.