Duccio di Buoninsegna
Active in Siena in 1278-Siena, 1319
An artist of the Sienese school, and the most important representative of that school in the thirteenth century. Very little information survives from which to construct the artist's training and early years. The first known fact relating to Duccio dates from 1278 in Siena with a documented reference to a series of minor works commissioned from the artist, from which it can be deduced that the artist enjoyed a high status. The first securely attributable work is the Rucellai Madonna of 1285, painted for the Florentine church of Santa Maria Novella. This panel, now in the Uffizi, depicts the Virgin in Majesty, seated on a throne with the Infant Christ on her knees and surrounded by angels. Its style and composition have affinities with the work of Cimabue. In 1308 Duccio began work on his most important project, the Maestà, an altarpiece painted on both sides for the high altar of the Duomo of Siena. Completed in 1311, its central image was the Virgin and Child surrounded by angels and saints. It was topped on the main side with episodes from the life of the Virgin, with angels in the pinnacles, while the lower zone was completed by a predella with scenes from the childhood of Christ alternating with figures of Prophets. On the reverse side were twenty-six episodes from the life of Christ with a further nine in the predella. This ambitious ensemble, which was placed in the Duomo with great ceremony, was dismantled in the eighteenth century when some of the panels were separated from it.
BELLOSI, L.: Duccio. La Maestà. Milan, 1988.
BOSCOVITS, M.: The Thyssen-Bornemisza Collection. Early Italian Painting. 1290-1470. London, 1990.
DEUCHLER, F.: Duccio. Milan, 1984.
STUBBLEBINE, J. H.: Duccio di Buoninsegna and his School. 2 vols., Princeton, 1979.
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