Vergine in maestà con sei angeli

Francescuccio Ghissi was a painter from the Marches region of Italy, active in the mid-fourteenth century and associated with the artistic tradition of Fabriano. This Virgin in Majesty with Six Angels, now in the Musee du Petit Palais, presents the Maestà format showing the enthroned Madonna surrounded by a celestial court. Ghissi's work reflects the stylistic crosscurrents of the Marches, where Tuscan Giottesque influences merged with Adriatic and Byzantine traditions to produce a distinctive regional variant of Italian Gothic painting.

Tempera and gold on panel, with the Virgin enthroned in hieratic majesty flanked by symmetrically arranged angel attendants. Ghissi's style combines the Byzantine-derived frontality and decorative richness of the Marchigian tradition with the more naturalistic figure modeling introduced from Tuscany.