The Burial of Saint Martha

This Burial of Saint Martha at the Metropolitan Museum depicts an episode from the life of one of the New Testament's most domestic saints—Martha, sister of Mary and Lazarus, who hosted Christ at Bethany and was celebrated for her practical service. Post-biblical tradition made Martha one of the saints who traveled to Provence after the Resurrection, and her burial was commemorated at Tarascon. Sano di Pietro's rendering of such minor hagiographic scenes reflects his comprehensive engagement with the Sienese devotional market's demand for narrative panels illustrating saints' lives for altarpiece predella sequences. The Metropolitan's holding documents American museum acquisition of Italian early Renaissance panel painting.

The burial scene is rendered with Sano di Pietro's characteristic narrative clarity, the mourning figures arranged around the saint's body with the measured compositional balance typical of Sienese panel painting.