Triptych: Saint Catherine of Siena

This Triptych of Saint Catherine of Siena at the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston, is dedicated entirely to the Dominican mystic who was Siena's supreme spiritual representative. Catherine appears in the central panel with scenes from her life or miracles in the wings—the stigmata she received from Christ, her mystical marriage, her political interventions convincing Pope Gregory XI to return from Avignon to Rome. Sano di Pietro painted Catherine more extensively than any other artist, serving as the primary visual interpreter of her cult across five decades. The Boston triptych documents the American museum market's sustained acquisition of Sano's Catherine imagery as representative of the Sienese devotional tradition at its most characteristic.

The triptych format presents Catherine's life and miracles across multiple panels, each rendered with Sano di Pietro's characteristic narrative clarity and the refined Sienese style suited to hagiographic devotional imagery.