The Madonna and Child with Angels (The Quaratesi Madonna)

Gentile da Fabriano dated this panel 1425. It was the centre of an altarpiece that a member of the Quaratesi family paid for, to stand on the high altar of San Niccolò Oltrarno, a church on the south bank of the Arno in Florence. Four saints stood at its sides, and small scenes from the life of Saint Nicholas ran underneath. The saints are now in the Uffizi, and the little scenes are divided between the Vatican and Washington.

Look at the hanging behind the Virgin. It was laid in silver and glazed over with red, and the silver has since tarnished dark. The Child holds what looks like a daisy, and angels crowd the tooled gold around the pair. A year later, in Pisa, the young Masaccio painted the same subject with heavy bodies and real shadow, and that panel hangs in the National Gallery too.

This one belongs to the King. It came into the Royal Collection through Prince Albert, who in 1847 lent money to a German relative, Prince Oettingen-Wallerstein, against his pictures, and kept them when the loan was never repaid.