Saint Peter, with Saint James Major [left panel]

Martino di Bartolomeo's Saint Peter with Saint James Major, the left panel of a triptych from around 1415-20, shows two apostles in the Byzantine-influenced style that characterized late Gothic Sienese painting. Peter holds his keys — symbol of Christ's grant of ecclesiastical authority — while James carries the pilgrim's staff of the Camino de Santiago. These panels originally flanked a central Madonna and Child, their formal poses and gold grounds creating the hierarchical sacred space appropriate to altarpiece painting in Siena's conservative religious culture. Martino di Bartolomeo worked in Siena and Pisa during the late Trecento and early Quattrocento, maintaining the elegant late Gothic idiom of Taddeo di Bartolo and absorbing the sophisticated International Gothic style circulating through Italy during this period of intense artistic exchange.

Martino's tempera-on-panel technique produces the bright, clear color and precise linear drawing characteristic of the Sienese school. The saints are rendered with the decorative elegance of the late Gothic tradition, their attributes clearly displayed for devotional identification.