Saint James the Greater (with the Virgin of the Annunciation)

Martino di Bartolomeo's Saint James the Greater with the Virgin of the Annunciation, painted around 1412, combines a standing apostle saint with the Marian figure from the Annunciation scene. This panel would have formed part of a larger polyptych, with the Annunciate Virgin suggesting the altarpiece included a complete Annunciation across two panels. This work belongs to the Early Renaissance, the transformative period in European art when painters first applied mathematical perspective, naturalistic figure modeling, and archaeological interest in antiquity to the inherited traditions of medieval devotional painting.

The figures display the elegant proportions and flowing draperies characteristic of Sienese International Gothic painting, rendered in careful tempera with gold ground and decorative tooling that enriches the panel's devotional presence.