Madonna with the Child and the Saint Girolamo and Mary Magdalene

Neroccio di Bartolomeo de' Landi painted this Madonna with Child, Saints Jerome and Mary Magdalene around 1495 in Siena. The pairing of the scholarly Jerome with the penitent Magdalene created a devotional contrast between contemplative learning and passionate repentance. Neroccio's late works display the extreme elegance and refinement that characterize the final flowering of the Sienese school. This work belongs to the High Renaissance, when the innovations of the preceding century were synthesized into works of monumental clarity and ideal beauty.

Tempera on panel with Neroccio's distinctively elongated figure proportions and delicate coloring. The refined surface treatment and graceful linear rhythms exemplify the Sienese aesthetic at its most accomplished.