Polyptych of the Coronation of the Virgin (The Redeemer Blessing)

When Brera bought this in 1811 it was entered in the books as the work of an anonymous Greek painter. That tells you how gold-ground painting was read at the time: the flat gold, the slender figures and the stacked compartments looked Byzantine, foreign, older than Italian art proper. In fact it is Sienese, from around 1400, and it was Bernard Berenson who eventually gave it to Andrea di Bartolo, who painted it with his son Giorgio. It came from the convent of Santa Caterina d'Alessandria at Sant'Angelo in Vado, in the Marches, and it has never been whole since. What hangs here is a reconstruction of the main tier, with the Coronation of the Virgin in the middle. Two of the missing saints are in Urbino, and the little narrative panels from the base are divided between Toledo in Ohio, Bologna and a private collection.