Saints Peter and Paul (polyptych, panel 4 of 5)

This panel of Saints Peter and Paul belongs to a five-part polyptych by Bernardo Daddi, dated 1348 — the final year of the artist's life and the year the Black Death struck Florence with devastating force. Daddi's workshop was among the busiest in Florence, and this polyptych represents the mature culmination of his decades-long career. Now in the Courtauld Gallery, London, the panel is among the last documented works of a painter whose gentle, devotional style defined mid-Trecento Florentine art.

Egg tempera and gold on panel with refined punch-work haloes and the warm, luminous palette of Daddi's mature style. The paired saints are rendered with the soft modeling, gentle expressions, and graceful drapery that characterize Daddi's distinctive adaptation of the Giottesque tradition.