Scenes from the Passion: Predella

Pietro di Francesco degli Orioli, who was a Sienese painter of the late fifteenth century who continued the local tradition with distinctive personal touches, created this work around 1490, now in London's National Gallery. This work reflects the artistic culture of Siena during the High Renaissance, when the innovations of the early fifteenth century reached their mature expression in works of unprecedented technical and compositional sophistication.

As a predella panel, this small-scale narrative demonstrates skilled compression of dramatic action into a compact format, with figures arranged in legible groupings against a simplified architectural or landscape backdrop.