The Assumption of the Virgin with St. Thomas and Two Donors (Ser Palamedes and his Son Matthew)

Andrea di Bartolo, son and pupil of the Sienese master Bartolo di Fredi, painted this Assumption of the Virgin with Saint Thomas and two donor portraits around 1390. The inclusion of named donors — Ser Palamedes and his son Matthew — makes this a particularly valuable document of late medieval Sienese patronage, revealing the personal piety and social aspirations of a notarial family. The Assumption with the doubting Thomas receiving Mary's girdle was especially popular in Tuscan art, connected to the relic of the Sacred Belt preserved in Prato Cathedral.

Executed in egg tempera and gold on panel, the work demonstrates Andrea di Bartolo's inheritance of the refined Sienese Gothic tradition with its emphasis on elegant line, luminous color, and decorative gold tooling. The donor figures kneeling at reduced scale follow established conventions of hierarchical presentation.