Triptych: Madonna with Saints and Christ Blessing (Center); The Nativity and the Annunciate Angel (Left Wing); Crucifixion and the Virgin Annunciate (Right Wing)

Maso di Banco was one of the most gifted followers of Giotto, active in Florence in the 1330s-40s and celebrated for his fresco cycle in the Bardi di Vernio chapel at Santa Croce. This triptych at the Brooklyn Museum — with the Madonna and saints at center, Nativity and Annunciate Angel at left, and Crucifixion at right — is a portable altarpiece of the kind produced in Florentine workshops for export to private chapels, foreign courts, and individual donors. Dating to around 1336, it represents the Giottesque tradition at a moment of confident maturity, with volumetric figures and spatial coherence that set Italian Gothic painting apart from European contemporaries.

The three panels are unified by a continuous gold ground while maintaining individual compositional integrity. Maso's characteristic Giottesque modeling gives the figures weight and presence unusual for the scale. The drapery falls in broad, simplified folds that create convincing three-dimensional form, and the figures' faces express the restrained psychological engagement that marks the Giottesque school.