Saint Peter

The saints who once stood beside this Peter give away where the altarpiece was meant to go. Francis of Assisi, Louis of Toulouse, Clare, Anthony of Padua and Elizabeth of Hungary all belong to the Franciscan family, and the Louvre thinks the ensemble was painted for the Franciscan church at San Gimignano, the hill town of towers near Siena. It had seven main panels, the Virgin at the centre with three saints on either side, and smaller saints seem to have filled the pinnacles above. Peter, with his keys and a red book, stood on the right.

Today the pieces are spread between Siena, Milan, New Haven, Washington, New York, Pittsburgh and Providence. The centre is still missing. A Virgin and Child in Berlin was long proposed for it, and most specialists no longer accept her. The Louvre bought its panel in 1864 from William Blundell Spence, an English painter and dealer living in Florence, who sold it simply as Sienese school.