The Virgin and Child enthroned, between (left) St Lawrence and (right) St John Gualbert

Francesco di Antonio di Bartolomeo was a Florentine painter of the early fifteenth century who worked within the tradition of Bicci di Lorenzo and Lorenzo Monaco, producing altarpieces for churches and confraternities in Tuscany. His Virgin and Child enthroned with Saints Lawrence and John Gualbert was almost certainly painted for a Vallombrosan church — John Gualbert was the founder of the Vallombrosan order, and Lawrence is the order's associated martyr — in the region around Florence. The work represents the conservative devotional tradition that persisted alongside the spatial revolution of Masaccio and Donatello.

Francesco di Antonio works in tempera on gold ground with the polyptych-derived multi-figure format, each saint in a separate spatial unit flanking the central enthroned Virgin. His figure style retains the Lorenzo Monaco linearity — elongated proportions, rhythmic drapery folds — without the more plastic volume of the Masaccio tradition emerging simultaneously.