Christus

The Master of Badia a Isola painted this image of Christ around 1300, likely as the central element of a larger altarpiece ensemble. As a transitional figure between the Byzantine Maniera Greca and the emerging Gothic naturalism, this anonymous master documents the profound stylistic transformation occurring in Tuscan painting at the turn of the fourteenth century. The panel's current location in the Staatsgalerie Stuttgart reflects the German institutional appetite for early Italian painting.

Tempera and gold on panel with Christ rendered in a hieratic frontal pose against a burnished gold ground. The master's style retains strong Byzantine elements in the linear treatment of features and drapery while showing tentative movement toward the softer modeling of the new Gothic manner.