St Peter und St Paul

Ambrogio Lorenzetti's Saints Peter and Paul belongs to the polyptych altarpiece production of the Lorenzetti workshop, presenting the two princes of the apostles who together founded the Roman church and established Christianity's theological and institutional foundations. Ambrogio, the younger Lorenzetti brother, was among the most intellectually ambitious painters of the Trecento, whose Allegories of Good and Bad Government in the Siena Town Hall created the first extensive secular allegorical fresco program in Italian art. His apostle panels, while less celebrated than his secular work, demonstrate the same formal clarity and psychological penetration he brought to all his figure subjects.

Tempera on panel with gold ground and tooled haloes. Lorenzetti's figures display the volumetric solidity and spatial conviction that set his work apart from the more linear Sienese norm, with carefully observed drapery folds suggesting real weight.