The Coronation of the Virgin

At some point before 1828 this panel was cut in two. The upper part, Christ placing a crown on his mother's head, is the one in London. The lower part, four kneeling angels with musical instruments and two saints, John the Baptist and Stephen, has been at Christ Church Picture Gallery in Oxford since 1828. X-rays of the London panel show haloes that were scraped away.

The coronation itself is not a Gospel scene. Painters took it from the Golden Legend, the medieval book of saints' lives. Daddi painted it around 1340 to 1345, with the Virgin's arms crossed over her chest in a gesture of humility, her robe patterned with gold over red and blue, and the throne hung with cloth of gold, green and blue woven with fleurs-de-lis.

In the 20th century the London half passed through the hands of Herbert Horne, the English architect and collector who lived in Florence, and later of the American banker J. Pierpont Morgan Junior. When Morgan's heirs sold it in 1944 it was catalogued as the work of Nardo Orcagna, a Florentine painter of the next generation. The National Gallery bought it in 2004.