Madonna and Child Enthroned between Saints Jerome and Augustine, Four Angels and Two Cherubim

Around 1500 Pietro Perugino was one of the most sought-after painters in Italy, running a workshop so busy that many pictures under his name were largely painted by assistants, this altarpiece among them. He is often remembered now as the man who trained the young Raphael. The panel shows the Madonna and Child enthroned between two learned saints, Jerome and Augustine, with angels, in the calm, softly balanced style Perugino made famous. It sat in its Italian church for generations. Then in 1797 one of Napoleon's commissioners picked it out for confiscation, and by 1803 it had been shipped to Bordeaux, where it hangs today, one of countless Italian works that ended up in French provincial museums after the revolution.