Madonna and Child

This gold-ground Madonna comes from late-14th-century Siena, painted around 1390 in the tender, flowing line the city had made its own since Simone Martini two generations earlier. Its maker, Andrea Vanni, was an unusual figure, a painter who also served Siena as a statesman and ambassador and was a close friend of the mystic Catherine of Siena. He left the one likeness of her set down by someone who actually knew her. None of that public life shows here. What you get instead is a quiet devotional image, the Virgin's head inclined toward the child, gold tooled into the halos, made for private prayer rather than for display.