Triptych. Centre Panel: Death of St Ephraim with scenes from the lives of the monks in the Thebaid. Above; the Redeemer and six angels. Left Wing: Mourning Angels; the Crucifixions; the three Marys at

Grifo di Tancredi was a Florentine painter active in the late thirteenth century, working in the wake of Cimabue and the transformation of Byzantine-influenced painting that prepared the way for Giotto. This monumental triptych at the National Galleries of Scotland depicts scenes from the lives of monks of the Thebaid alongside the Death of Saint Ephraim the Syrian, framed above by the Redeemer with angels and flanked by wings showing the Crucifixion and related scenes. Dating to around 1250, this is an extremely early work within the European painting tradition, predating Giotto's innovations by half a century, and documents the hagiographic narrative tradition of the late Duecento.

The Byzantine inheritance is manifest in the gold ground, hierarchical figure scaling, and the frontal presentation of sacred figures. Individual scenes are organized in horizontal registers following the continuous narrative convention of medieval pictorial storytelling. Figures are rendered in the linear, two-dimensional manner of Italo-Byzantine panel painting, with decorative patterning in drapery and gold highlights.