Madonna of Humility

The Virgin here has no throne. She sits on the floor to nurse her child, and that low seat gives the image its name. The Madonna of Humility, from the Latin humus, the ground, was a type much loved by Sienese painters in the 14th century. Niccolò di Buonaccorso places her in a small room, and on the bench behind her lie a book, a sewing kit and some needlework, the ordinary things of a household. In 2022 the Louvre showed the panel in its exhibition on the history of still life. In the gable above, God the Father appears among red seraphim.

The panel comes from the collection of the art dealer Alfred Strölin. In 1976 Madame Lanini-Strölin, of Lausanne, gave it to the Louvre while keeping the use of it, and it only entered the museum in 2011.