Madonna and Child Enthroned

This Madonna and Child Enthroned by the Master of the Bigallo Crucifixion, painted around 1250, is among the earliest works attributable to the Florentine school in its transition from Romanesque to Gothic conventions. The anonymous master takes his name from a crucifixion panel at the Misericordia in Florence, and his small body of work documents the formative phase of Florentine painting before Cimabue and Giotto transformed it. This rare panel reveals how mid-13th-century Florentine painters absorbed Byzantine models while beginning to develop local stylistic traits.

Executed in tempera and gold on panel, the painting shows strong Byzantine influence in its gold ground, frontal composition, and linear treatment of drapery. The stiff, hieratic quality of the figures and schematic facial features are characteristic of this early moment in Florentine panel painting.