Madonna col Bambino e due sante

In the 1490s Perugino was among the busiest painters in Italy, running workshops in both Florence and Perugia to keep up with demand for exactly this kind of tender devotional picture. To work faster he reused his own designs. The arrangement here, the Virgin and Child set between two female saints, one of them Catherine of Alexandria, was pounced from a cartoon he returned to more than once, which is why closely similar versions survive in other museums. This was a well-run business meeting a steady market. What he supplied afresh each time was the soft even light and the calm, downturned faces his patrons prized, the quiet expression you can still read on the Virgin in this panel.