Virgin and Child with Saint Jerome, Saint Anthony of Padua and Two Angels

Two saints stand at the left of this panel, and each carries his sign. Jerome holds the stone he struck his chest with in the desert to drive off temptation. Anthony of Padua, the Franciscan preacher, holds a heart. Saints like these were usually the client's choice, and the museum suggests that whoever ordered the picture may have been called Girolamo or Antonio, or felt a particular devotion to the two. The angels on the right carry nothing and simply balance the group.

Francesco di Giorgio painted it in Siena around 1469 to 1472. In those years he shared a workshop with another Sienese painter, Neroccio de' Landi, a partnership that lasted until 1475, and a Virgin and Child for private prayer was the steady trade of such a shop.

In 1924 the Florentine dealer Luigi Grassi sold it to the Boston collector Edward Jackson Holmes, who gave it to the museum in 1941. It hangs in the Italian Renaissance gallery.