The Coronation of the Virgin, Scenes from the Lives of Joachim and Anna, and from the Life of the Virgin

In 1367 Giusto de' Menabuoi was working in Milan, and he said so on this small folding altarpiece, which bears his name, the date and a Latin note saying where it was painted. It is the last work known from his Milanese years. Open, it shows Christ crowning the Virgin among rows of saints, with the Nativity in one wing, the Crucifixion in the other, and the Annunciation split across the two pointed tops. Closed, the outer wings tell the story of the Virgin's parents, Joachim and Anna, and of her own early years, up to her marriage. Those scenes follow Giotto's frescoes in the Arena Chapel in Padua. The first owner may have been a Dominican nun, Isotta de Terzago, or the couple Ambrogio and Caterina Birago, whose name saints both appear. Prince Albert bought it in 1847, and Queen Victoria gave it to the nation in 1863.