Madonna dei Cedri

The name has nothing to do with cedars. Cedri is a village in the hills above Pisa, and this small panel came down from its church to the museum in the city. It is a Madonna of Humility, the type that seats the Virgin low on a cushion rather than on a throne, which spread quickly through Tuscany in the decades either side of 1400. Who painted it is still unsettled. It has long been given to Fra Angelico, and shown as his in exhibitions, which would place it right at the start of his career, around the time he entered the Dominican convent at Fiesole and was still known as Guido di Pietro. Other scholars look at the same soft faces and rounded drapery and see Masolino instead. The two men were working within a few miles of each other in those years, which is part of why the question stays open.