Madonna dell'Umiltà

This gold-ground panel shows the Virgin seated low, on a cushion close to the ground rather than a throne, the pose that gives the Madonna of Humility its name. It surfaced on the London art market in 1930 and has divided scholars ever since. In 1932 the historian Alfred Scharf proposed Masolino, the early Florentine painter, and Roberto Longhi agreed in 1940, reading the strong light and shade as an early trace of Masolino's contact with Masaccio. Others resisted: Bernard Berenson filed it under an anonymous Master of 1419, and Federico Zeri saw only a Florentine hand of the early 1400s. Most now lean back to Masolino, which would make this among his earliest known works. It reached the Uffizi in 1988.