Madonna di Buonconvento

The Madonna di Buonconvento (c. 1300), attributed to Duccio di Buoninsegna, is an early devotional panel now in the Sacred Art Museum of the Arbia Valley near the Tuscan town of Buonconvento. Duccio was the founder of the Sienese school of painting and the most important Italian painter to synthesize Byzantine iconographic traditions with the emerging Gothic naturalism of the late thirteenth century. This intimate Madonna and Child reflects the type of refined devotional image that made Duccio's workshop the preeminent source of panel paintings in Siena.

Painted in egg tempera with gold leaf on panel, the work displays the delicate modeling and lyrical linear rhythms that characterize Duccio's early style, still close to the Byzantine tradition. The Madonna's blue mantle is rendered in costly ultramarine with subtle highlights, and the gold ground features fine incised decoration typical of late Duecento Sienese craftsmanship.