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The splendour of the Sienese Trecento at the National Gallery
From 8 March to 22 June 2025, the National Gallery in London presents the exhibition “Siena: The Rise of Painting 1300‒1350”
Source: National Gallery · Image: Duccio, ‘The Annunciation’, 1307/8‒11 © The National Gallery, London
The exhibition of approximately a hundred works will explore the evolving status of painting among the arts of Europe and show the central role that Sienese artists played in this story, at home, in other Italian centres, and in the cities and courts of Europe.
The exhibition will bring together several surviving panels from the monumental double-sided altarpiece known as the ‘Maestà’, painted by Sienese artist Duccio di Buoninsegna (active 1278, died 1319) for the city’s cathedral. This is the first double-sided altarpiece in Western painting, and marks a fundamental shift in narrative art. This remarkably complex work was dismantled in the 18th century. The National Gallery’s own three panels from the ‘Maestà’, will be reunited with other paintings from this ensemble detailing episodes from Christ’s life. These include ‘Christ and the Woman of Samaria’ from the Museo Thyssen-Bornemisza, Madrid and ‘The Calling of the Apostles Peter and Andrew’ from the National Gallery of Art, Washington DC.
Another reunion will be the ‘Orsini Polyptych’ by Sienese artist Simone Martini (1284‒1344). This is a folding work of art made for private devotion, probably for Cardinal Napoleone Orsini, who belonged to one of the most influential princely families of medieval and Renaissance Italy. Today it is divided between the Louvre, Paris, the Royal Museum of Fine Arts, Antwerp and the Gemäldegalerie, Berlin. All six panels – ‘Christ bearing the Cross’, ‘Crucifixion’, ‘Descent from the Cross’ and ‘Entombment’ (depicted on the front of the folding panting); and ‘The Archangel Gabriel’ and ‘The Virgin of the Annunciation’ (seen on the reverse), will be brought together for the National Gallery’s exhibition.
Other reunions include two triptychs by Duccio – The Virgin and Child with Saint Dominic and Saint Aurea, and Patriarchs and Prophets, (about 1312–15) from the National Gallery, London; and ‘The Crucifixion’; ‘The Redeemer with Angels’; ‘ Saint Nicholas’; ‘Saint Clement’, (1311–18) from the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston. They seem to have been conceived as a pair for an individual, possibly Cardinal Niccolò da Prato, and they have matching decorations on their exterior wings.