Virgin and Child Enthroned with Four Angels

Piero della Francesca's Virgin and Child Enthroned with Four Angels, dated to around 1475 and now in the Clark Art Institute, belongs to his final decade of activity before he abandoned painting entirely for mathematics and perspective theory. Scholars sometimes link it to the period after his great Montefeltro Altarpiece (Brera), and the four angels — two on each side, holding decorative items — recall the architectural solemnity of that masterpiece without its monumental scale. The work was likely a private devotional commission from a patron who wanted a portable but elevated object of contemplation. By this date Piero had essentially created the visual language of Central Italian Renaissance painting and was reflecting back on his own principles with the calm authority of a master who had nothing left to prove.

Piero's handling of light is as controlled as any work he produced: the angels' faces receive equal illumination from a source outside the picture space, and the modelling passes through almost imperceptible tonal gradations. The drapery of the Virgin follows his characteristic system of broad, geometrically simplified folds. The blue of her mantle is intensely saturated, set against the cooler grey stone of the throne.