Christ Blessing

This gold disc is only 12 centimetres across, and it was never meant to stand alone. It most likely sat in the pointed top of a small triptych, above the central panel, between an angel and a Virgin of the Annunciation, both now lost. The figure is harder to name than it first looks. The Louvre calls him Christ blessing, while noting that the image borrows from the usual ways of showing God the Father, Christ and the Holy Spirit. The painter's name has moved too. In 1943, with a Paris dealer, the roundel was given to Lorenzo Monaco, an older Florentine painter and monk. It is now given to Fra Angelico and dated to the second quarter of the 15th century. The collectors Léon and Jeanne Salavin gave it in 1973 to the Fondation de France, which placed it on deposit at the Louvre, in Room 709.