Polyptych of Madonna and child with saints

This is the earliest work Carlo Crivelli signed and dated, finished in 1468 for the small hill town of Massa Fermana in the Marche, where it still stands in the church it was made for. Crivelli had come a long way to get there. He trained in Venice, was convicted in 1457 of an affair with a sailor's wife and jailed, and afterwards left the lagoon for good, working his way down the Adriatic coast into this quiet corner of central Italy. Yet across the base of the panel he still calls himself Venetus, the Venetian, in gold capital letters. The Madonna and Child sit at the centre on gold ground, ringed by saints, with small scenes of Christ's Passion running along the predella below.