Madonna and Child Enthroned with Saints

Madonna and Child Enthroned with Saints, painted in 1484 and now at the Uffizi Gallery, is a major altarpiece from Ghirlandaio's productive middle period. The sacra conversazione format—the Virgin and Child enthroned with saints arranged in attendance—was the dominant altarpiece type in late fifteenth-century Florence, and Ghirlandaio was among its most accomplished practitioners. The saints' identities, determined by the dedicatee of the church or the patron's devotional preferences, are rendered with the individual portraiture approach Ghirlandaio applied to all his figures.

Ghirlandaio constructs the standard hierarchical composition of the sacra conversazione with architectural setting—a throne canopy, marble steps—and flanking saints who turn toward the central Virgin and Child. His figure drawing is clear and confident, and his colour palette tends toward warm, saturated tones that read well in chapel settings.