Two Apostles Saints

This panel of Two Apostle Saints by Taddeo Gaddi, painted around 1320, reflects the artist's early career in the workshop of Giotto, where he served as the master's principal assistant for over two decades. Taddeo was Giotto's most faithful follower, carrying his monumental figural style into the next generation of Florentine painting. Now in the Cini Palace Gallery, Venice, the work shows the young Gaddi absorbing Giotto's innovations in volumetric form while developing his own more coloristic and decorative sensibility.

Egg tempera and gold leaf on panel with solidly modeled figures reflecting Giotto's influence on the young Taddeo Gaddi. The apostles are rendered with clear, firm contours and weighty drapery folds that demonstrate the Giottesque emphasis on three-dimensional form.