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Siena: The Rise of Painting 1300‒1350 at the National Gallery explores when paintings became Western Europe's most sought-after art form. It transports its audience to the life of artists in 1300s Siena, a small, beautiful city in the hills in Italy’s Tuscany region. The city, at the time, was a cultural and economic hotspot. It was used as a thoroughfare for a major pilgrimage route; it was one of the first banking centres in Western Europe and an important location for many trade networks, including the historic Silk Road that connected the West to the East. This economic prosperity allowed artistic development in the city and allowed experimentation. Not far from bustling Florence, considered the birthplace of the Renaissance, this exhibition looks closely at four artists- Duccio di Buoninsegna, the brothers - Pietro and Ambrogio Lorenzetti, and Simone Martini, all born in Siena. It explores the monumental commissions they worked on.
This exhibition is the result of a collaborative project between six curators across the US, the UK and Ireland and was first showcased at The Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York between October 2024 and January 2025. This collaboration allows for the reunion of two of Duccio’s triptychs between 1311 and 1318, one owned by the National Gallery and the other by the Museum of Fine Arts in Boston, to be showcased together after several hundred years. The triptychs are identical in dimensions and structure and contain a central wooden panel with hinges on each side that link to smaller panels. This structure allows the work to open out or be closed, allowing ease of transportation. The work on this wood is done with tempera, a painting form where pigments are mixed with a water-soluble binder, often egg yolk. This gives the work a matte finish once dry, allowing the colours to retain their vibrance even after centuries.
These two triptychs are also significant because they convey what Laura Llewellyn, one of the curators of this exhibition and Curator of Italian Paintings before 1500 at the National Gallery, stresses is the exhibition's focus. Llewellyn emphasises that Duccio’s work while telling stories of Christianity, brings human experience to the forefront. In Triptych with the Virgin and Child, Saint Dominic, Saint Aurea, Patriarchs and Prophets, Duccio paints a happy Virgin Mary holding her child on her shoulders as he plays with her veil. By showing the mother and child's eyes interlocked, Duccio communicates to the audience the love between them. In the Triptych with the Crucifixion, Saint Nicholas, Saint Clement and the Redeemer with angels, the focus of the central image is on pain - both felt physically by Jesus Christ and Mary as she is depicted falling into the arms of those around her. This triptych relays the story of how, since Christ was born into this world without inflicting any pain of childbirth when he dies, Mary feels this excruciating pain. For Llewellyn, these two triptychs that were commissioned together (with a third one that is now lost), Duccio stops to think about the physical pain of the crucifixion and the grief and pain that Mary suffered.
Focusing on narrative paintings and highlighting human experiences, the curators also successfully combine eight of nine back sequences in the altarpiece for Siena Cathedral. This five-metre-tall altarpiece is replete with many small paintings and is famously known as Duccio’s Maestà. However, the painter likely had other Sienese artists collaborate to bring this extraordinary project to life.
This sequence, separated two hundred and fifty years ago, required loans from five different collections worldwide to be reunited and become the centrepiece of this exhibition. It focuses on Christ’s importance in the lives of ordinary people, and the paintings were placed on the altarpiece where they were most accessible to the people.
Duccio’s emphasis in this work is on bringing stories to people that might bring them solace, comfort and peace. His work centred on the emotions it would evoke from his diverse audience and kept their experiences in mind. This allowed painters and artists at the time to follow in his footsteps and prioritise the ordinary people whose lives and works were heavily impacted. The National Gallery hosts a reunion that celebrates narrative painting and documents the rise of this technique and artistic experimentation in a small Italian city in the fourteenth century.
Siena: The Rise of Painting 1300‒1350 at the National Gallery explores when paintings became Western Europe's most sought-after art form. It transports its audience to the life of artists in 1300s Siena, a small, beautiful city in the hills in Italy’s Tuscany region. The city, at the time, was a cultural and economic hotspot. It was used as a thoroughfare for a major pilgrimage route; it was one of the first banking centres in Western Europe and an important location for many trade networks, including the historic Silk Road that connected the West to the East. This economic prosperity allowed artistic development in the city and allowed experimentation. Not far from bustling Florence, considered the birthplace of the Renaissance, this exhibition looks closely at four artists- Duccio di Buoninsegna, the brothers - Pietro and Ambrogio Lorenzetti, and Simone Martini, all born in Siena. It explores the monumental commissions they worked on.
This exhibition is the result of a collaborative project between six curators across the US, the UK and Ireland and was first showcased at The Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York between October 2024 and January 2025. This collaboration allows for the reunion of two of Duccio’s triptychs between 1311 and 1318, one owned by the National Gallery and the other by the Museum of Fine Arts in Boston, to be showcased together after several hundred years. The triptychs are identical in dimensions and structure and contain a central wooden panel with hinges on each side that link to smaller panels. This structure allows the work to open out or be closed, allowing ease of transportation. The work on this wood is done with tempera, a painting form where pigments are mixed with a water-soluble binder, often egg yolk. This gives the work a matte finish once dry, allowing the colours to retain their vibrance even after centuries.
These two triptychs are also significant because they convey what Laura Llewellyn, one of the curators of this exhibition and Curator of Italian Paintings before 1500 at the National Gallery, stresses is the exhibition's focus. Llewellyn emphasises that Duccio’s work while telling stories of Christianity, brings human experience to the forefront. In Triptych with the Virgin and Child, Saint Dominic, Saint Aurea, Patriarchs and Prophets, Duccio paints a happy Virgin Mary holding her child on her shoulders as he plays with her veil. By showing the mother and child's eyes interlocked, Duccio communicates to the audience the love between them. In the Triptych with the Crucifixion, Saint Nicholas, Saint Clement and the Redeemer with angels, the focus of the central image is on pain - both felt physically by Jesus Christ and Mary as she is depicted falling into the arms of those around her. This triptych relays the story of how, since Christ was born into this world without inflicting any pain of childbirth when he dies, Mary feels this excruciating pain. For Llewellyn, these two triptychs that were commissioned together (with a third one that is now lost), Duccio stops to think about the physical pain of the crucifixion and the grief and pain that Mary suffered.
Focusing on narrative paintings and highlighting human experiences, the curators also successfully combine eight of nine back sequences in the altarpiece for Siena Cathedral. This five-metre-tall altarpiece is replete with many small paintings and is famously known as Duccio’s Maestà. However, the painter likely had other Sienese artists collaborate to bring this extraordinary project to life.
This sequence, separated two hundred and fifty years ago, required loans from five different collections worldwide to be reunited and become the centrepiece of this exhibition. It focuses on Christ’s importance in the lives of ordinary people, and the paintings were placed on the altarpiece where they were most accessible to the people.
Duccio’s emphasis in this work is on bringing stories to people that might bring them solace, comfort and peace. His work centred on the emotions it would evoke from his diverse audience and kept their experiences in mind. This allowed painters and artists at the time to follow in his footsteps and prioritise the ordinary people whose lives and works were heavily impacted. The National Gallery hosts a reunion that celebrates narrative painting and documents the rise of this technique and artistic experimentation in a small Italian city in the fourteenth century.
Siena: The Rise of Painting 1300‒1350 at the National Gallery explores when paintings became Western Europe's most sought-after art form. It transports its audience to the life of artists in 1300s Siena, a small, beautiful city in the hills in Italy’s Tuscany region. The city, at the time, was a cultural and economic hotspot. It was used as a thoroughfare for a major pilgrimage route; it was one of the first banking centres in Western Europe and an important location for many trade networks, including the historic Silk Road that connected the West to the East. This economic prosperity allowed artistic development in the city and allowed experimentation. Not far from bustling Florence, considered the birthplace of the Renaissance, this exhibition looks closely at four artists- Duccio di Buoninsegna, the brothers - Pietro and Ambrogio Lorenzetti, and Simone Martini, all born in Siena. It explores the monumental commissions they worked on.
This exhibition is the result of a collaborative project between six curators across the US, the UK and Ireland and was first showcased at The Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York between October 2024 and January 2025. This collaboration allows for the reunion of two of Duccio’s triptychs between 1311 and 1318, one owned by the National Gallery and the other by the Museum of Fine Arts in Boston, to be showcased together after several hundred years. The triptychs are identical in dimensions and structure and contain a central wooden panel with hinges on each side that link to smaller panels. This structure allows the work to open out or be closed, allowing ease of transportation. The work on this wood is done with tempera, a painting form where pigments are mixed with a water-soluble binder, often egg yolk. This gives the work a matte finish once dry, allowing the colours to retain their vibrance even after centuries.
These two triptychs are also significant because they convey what Laura Llewellyn, one of the curators of this exhibition and Curator of Italian Paintings before 1500 at the National Gallery, stresses is the exhibition's focus. Llewellyn emphasises that Duccio’s work while telling stories of Christianity, brings human experience to the forefront. In Triptych with the Virgin and Child, Saint Dominic, Saint Aurea, Patriarchs and Prophets, Duccio paints a happy Virgin Mary holding her child on her shoulders as he plays with her veil. By showing the mother and child's eyes interlocked, Duccio communicates to the audience the love between them. In the Triptych with the Crucifixion, Saint Nicholas, Saint Clement and the Redeemer with angels, the focus of the central image is on pain - both felt physically by Jesus Christ and Mary as she is depicted falling into the arms of those around her. This triptych relays the story of how, since Christ was born into this world without inflicting any pain of childbirth when he dies, Mary feels this excruciating pain. For Llewellyn, these two triptychs that were commissioned together (with a third one that is now lost), Duccio stops to think about the physical pain of the crucifixion and the grief and pain that Mary suffered.
Focusing on narrative paintings and highlighting human experiences, the curators also successfully combine eight of nine back sequences in the altarpiece for Siena Cathedral. This five-metre-tall altarpiece is replete with many small paintings and is famously known as Duccio’s Maestà. However, the painter likely had other Sienese artists collaborate to bring this extraordinary project to life.
This sequence, separated two hundred and fifty years ago, required loans from five different collections worldwide to be reunited and become the centrepiece of this exhibition. It focuses on Christ’s importance in the lives of ordinary people, and the paintings were placed on the altarpiece where they were most accessible to the people.
Duccio’s emphasis in this work is on bringing stories to people that might bring them solace, comfort and peace. His work centred on the emotions it would evoke from his diverse audience and kept their experiences in mind. This allowed painters and artists at the time to follow in his footsteps and prioritise the ordinary people whose lives and works were heavily impacted. The National Gallery hosts a reunion that celebrates narrative painting and documents the rise of this technique and artistic experimentation in a small Italian city in the fourteenth century.
Siena: The Rise of Painting 1300‒1350 at the National Gallery explores when paintings became Western Europe's most sought-after art form. It transports its audience to the life of artists in 1300s Siena, a small, beautiful city in the hills in Italy’s Tuscany region. The city, at the time, was a cultural and economic hotspot. It was used as a thoroughfare for a major pilgrimage route; it was one of the first banking centres in Western Europe and an important location for many trade networks, including the historic Silk Road that connected the West to the East. This economic prosperity allowed artistic development in the city and allowed experimentation. Not far from bustling Florence, considered the birthplace of the Renaissance, this exhibition looks closely at four artists- Duccio di Buoninsegna, the brothers - Pietro and Ambrogio Lorenzetti, and Simone Martini, all born in Siena. It explores the monumental commissions they worked on.
This exhibition is the result of a collaborative project between six curators across the US, the UK and Ireland and was first showcased at The Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York between October 2024 and January 2025. This collaboration allows for the reunion of two of Duccio’s triptychs between 1311 and 1318, one owned by the National Gallery and the other by the Museum of Fine Arts in Boston, to be showcased together after several hundred years. The triptychs are identical in dimensions and structure and contain a central wooden panel with hinges on each side that link to smaller panels. This structure allows the work to open out or be closed, allowing ease of transportation. The work on this wood is done with tempera, a painting form where pigments are mixed with a water-soluble binder, often egg yolk. This gives the work a matte finish once dry, allowing the colours to retain their vibrance even after centuries.
These two triptychs are also significant because they convey what Laura Llewellyn, one of the curators of this exhibition and Curator of Italian Paintings before 1500 at the National Gallery, stresses is the exhibition's focus. Llewellyn emphasises that Duccio’s work while telling stories of Christianity, brings human experience to the forefront. In Triptych with the Virgin and Child, Saint Dominic, Saint Aurea, Patriarchs and Prophets, Duccio paints a happy Virgin Mary holding her child on her shoulders as he plays with her veil. By showing the mother and child's eyes interlocked, Duccio communicates to the audience the love between them. In the Triptych with the Crucifixion, Saint Nicholas, Saint Clement and the Redeemer with angels, the focus of the central image is on pain - both felt physically by Jesus Christ and Mary as she is depicted falling into the arms of those around her. This triptych relays the story of how, since Christ was born into this world without inflicting any pain of childbirth when he dies, Mary feels this excruciating pain. For Llewellyn, these two triptychs that were commissioned together (with a third one that is now lost), Duccio stops to think about the physical pain of the crucifixion and the grief and pain that Mary suffered.
Focusing on narrative paintings and highlighting human experiences, the curators also successfully combine eight of nine back sequences in the altarpiece for Siena Cathedral. This five-metre-tall altarpiece is replete with many small paintings and is famously known as Duccio’s Maestà. However, the painter likely had other Sienese artists collaborate to bring this extraordinary project to life.
This sequence, separated two hundred and fifty years ago, required loans from five different collections worldwide to be reunited and become the centrepiece of this exhibition. It focuses on Christ’s importance in the lives of ordinary people, and the paintings were placed on the altarpiece where they were most accessible to the people.
Duccio’s emphasis in this work is on bringing stories to people that might bring them solace, comfort and peace. His work centred on the emotions it would evoke from his diverse audience and kept their experiences in mind. This allowed painters and artists at the time to follow in his footsteps and prioritise the ordinary people whose lives and works were heavily impacted. The National Gallery hosts a reunion that celebrates narrative painting and documents the rise of this technique and artistic experimentation in a small Italian city in the fourteenth century.
Siena: The Rise of Painting 1300‒1350 at the National Gallery explores when paintings became Western Europe's most sought-after art form. It transports its audience to the life of artists in 1300s Siena, a small, beautiful city in the hills in Italy’s Tuscany region. The city, at the time, was a cultural and economic hotspot. It was used as a thoroughfare for a major pilgrimage route; it was one of the first banking centres in Western Europe and an important location for many trade networks, including the historic Silk Road that connected the West to the East. This economic prosperity allowed artistic development in the city and allowed experimentation. Not far from bustling Florence, considered the birthplace of the Renaissance, this exhibition looks closely at four artists- Duccio di Buoninsegna, the brothers - Pietro and Ambrogio Lorenzetti, and Simone Martini, all born in Siena. It explores the monumental commissions they worked on.
This exhibition is the result of a collaborative project between six curators across the US, the UK and Ireland and was first showcased at The Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York between October 2024 and January 2025. This collaboration allows for the reunion of two of Duccio’s triptychs between 1311 and 1318, one owned by the National Gallery and the other by the Museum of Fine Arts in Boston, to be showcased together after several hundred years. The triptychs are identical in dimensions and structure and contain a central wooden panel with hinges on each side that link to smaller panels. This structure allows the work to open out or be closed, allowing ease of transportation. The work on this wood is done with tempera, a painting form where pigments are mixed with a water-soluble binder, often egg yolk. This gives the work a matte finish once dry, allowing the colours to retain their vibrance even after centuries.
These two triptychs are also significant because they convey what Laura Llewellyn, one of the curators of this exhibition and Curator of Italian Paintings before 1500 at the National Gallery, stresses is the exhibition's focus. Llewellyn emphasises that Duccio’s work while telling stories of Christianity, brings human experience to the forefront. In Triptych with the Virgin and Child, Saint Dominic, Saint Aurea, Patriarchs and Prophets, Duccio paints a happy Virgin Mary holding her child on her shoulders as he plays with her veil. By showing the mother and child's eyes interlocked, Duccio communicates to the audience the love between them. In the Triptych with the Crucifixion, Saint Nicholas, Saint Clement and the Redeemer with angels, the focus of the central image is on pain - both felt physically by Jesus Christ and Mary as she is depicted falling into the arms of those around her. This triptych relays the story of how, since Christ was born into this world without inflicting any pain of childbirth when he dies, Mary feels this excruciating pain. For Llewellyn, these two triptychs that were commissioned together (with a third one that is now lost), Duccio stops to think about the physical pain of the crucifixion and the grief and pain that Mary suffered.
Focusing on narrative paintings and highlighting human experiences, the curators also successfully combine eight of nine back sequences in the altarpiece for Siena Cathedral. This five-metre-tall altarpiece is replete with many small paintings and is famously known as Duccio’s Maestà. However, the painter likely had other Sienese artists collaborate to bring this extraordinary project to life.
This sequence, separated two hundred and fifty years ago, required loans from five different collections worldwide to be reunited and become the centrepiece of this exhibition. It focuses on Christ’s importance in the lives of ordinary people, and the paintings were placed on the altarpiece where they were most accessible to the people.
Duccio’s emphasis in this work is on bringing stories to people that might bring them solace, comfort and peace. His work centred on the emotions it would evoke from his diverse audience and kept their experiences in mind. This allowed painters and artists at the time to follow in his footsteps and prioritise the ordinary people whose lives and works were heavily impacted. The National Gallery hosts a reunion that celebrates narrative painting and documents the rise of this technique and artistic experimentation in a small Italian city in the fourteenth century.
Siena: The Rise of Painting 1300‒1350 at the National Gallery explores when paintings became Western Europe's most sought-after art form. It transports its audience to the life of artists in 1300s Siena, a small, beautiful city in the hills in Italy’s Tuscany region. The city, at the time, was a cultural and economic hotspot. It was used as a thoroughfare for a major pilgrimage route; it was one of the first banking centres in Western Europe and an important location for many trade networks, including the historic Silk Road that connected the West to the East. This economic prosperity allowed artistic development in the city and allowed experimentation. Not far from bustling Florence, considered the birthplace of the Renaissance, this exhibition looks closely at four artists- Duccio di Buoninsegna, the brothers - Pietro and Ambrogio Lorenzetti, and Simone Martini, all born in Siena. It explores the monumental commissions they worked on.
This exhibition is the result of a collaborative project between six curators across the US, the UK and Ireland and was first showcased at The Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York between October 2024 and January 2025. This collaboration allows for the reunion of two of Duccio’s triptychs between 1311 and 1318, one owned by the National Gallery and the other by the Museum of Fine Arts in Boston, to be showcased together after several hundred years. The triptychs are identical in dimensions and structure and contain a central wooden panel with hinges on each side that link to smaller panels. This structure allows the work to open out or be closed, allowing ease of transportation. The work on this wood is done with tempera, a painting form where pigments are mixed with a water-soluble binder, often egg yolk. This gives the work a matte finish once dry, allowing the colours to retain their vibrance even after centuries.
These two triptychs are also significant because they convey what Laura Llewellyn, one of the curators of this exhibition and Curator of Italian Paintings before 1500 at the National Gallery, stresses is the exhibition's focus. Llewellyn emphasises that Duccio’s work while telling stories of Christianity, brings human experience to the forefront. In Triptych with the Virgin and Child, Saint Dominic, Saint Aurea, Patriarchs and Prophets, Duccio paints a happy Virgin Mary holding her child on her shoulders as he plays with her veil. By showing the mother and child's eyes interlocked, Duccio communicates to the audience the love between them. In the Triptych with the Crucifixion, Saint Nicholas, Saint Clement and the Redeemer with angels, the focus of the central image is on pain - both felt physically by Jesus Christ and Mary as she is depicted falling into the arms of those around her. This triptych relays the story of how, since Christ was born into this world without inflicting any pain of childbirth when he dies, Mary feels this excruciating pain. For Llewellyn, these two triptychs that were commissioned together (with a third one that is now lost), Duccio stops to think about the physical pain of the crucifixion and the grief and pain that Mary suffered.
Focusing on narrative paintings and highlighting human experiences, the curators also successfully combine eight of nine back sequences in the altarpiece for Siena Cathedral. This five-metre-tall altarpiece is replete with many small paintings and is famously known as Duccio’s Maestà. However, the painter likely had other Sienese artists collaborate to bring this extraordinary project to life.
This sequence, separated two hundred and fifty years ago, required loans from five different collections worldwide to be reunited and become the centrepiece of this exhibition. It focuses on Christ’s importance in the lives of ordinary people, and the paintings were placed on the altarpiece where they were most accessible to the people.
Duccio’s emphasis in this work is on bringing stories to people that might bring them solace, comfort and peace. His work centred on the emotions it would evoke from his diverse audience and kept their experiences in mind. This allowed painters and artists at the time to follow in his footsteps and prioritise the ordinary people whose lives and works were heavily impacted. The National Gallery hosts a reunion that celebrates narrative painting and documents the rise of this technique and artistic experimentation in a small Italian city in the fourteenth century.
Siena: The Rise of Painting 1300‒1350 at the National Gallery explores when paintings became Western Europe's most sought-after art form. It transports its audience to the life of artists in 1300s Siena, a small, beautiful city in the hills in Italy’s Tuscany region. The city, at the time, was a cultural and economic hotspot. It was used as a thoroughfare for a major pilgrimage route; it was one of the first banking centres in Western Europe and an important location for many trade networks, including the historic Silk Road that connected the West to the East. This economic prosperity allowed artistic development in the city and allowed experimentation. Not far from bustling Florence, considered the birthplace of the Renaissance, this exhibition looks closely at four artists- Duccio di Buoninsegna, the brothers - Pietro and Ambrogio Lorenzetti, and Simone Martini, all born in Siena. It explores the monumental commissions they worked on.
This exhibition is the result of a collaborative project between six curators across the US, the UK and Ireland and was first showcased at The Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York between October 2024 and January 2025. This collaboration allows for the reunion of two of Duccio’s triptychs between 1311 and 1318, one owned by the National Gallery and the other by the Museum of Fine Arts in Boston, to be showcased together after several hundred years. The triptychs are identical in dimensions and structure and contain a central wooden panel with hinges on each side that link to smaller panels. This structure allows the work to open out or be closed, allowing ease of transportation. The work on this wood is done with tempera, a painting form where pigments are mixed with a water-soluble binder, often egg yolk. This gives the work a matte finish once dry, allowing the colours to retain their vibrance even after centuries.
These two triptychs are also significant because they convey what Laura Llewellyn, one of the curators of this exhibition and Curator of Italian Paintings before 1500 at the National Gallery, stresses is the exhibition's focus. Llewellyn emphasises that Duccio’s work while telling stories of Christianity, brings human experience to the forefront. In Triptych with the Virgin and Child, Saint Dominic, Saint Aurea, Patriarchs and Prophets, Duccio paints a happy Virgin Mary holding her child on her shoulders as he plays with her veil. By showing the mother and child's eyes interlocked, Duccio communicates to the audience the love between them. In the Triptych with the Crucifixion, Saint Nicholas, Saint Clement and the Redeemer with angels, the focus of the central image is on pain - both felt physically by Jesus Christ and Mary as she is depicted falling into the arms of those around her. This triptych relays the story of how, since Christ was born into this world without inflicting any pain of childbirth when he dies, Mary feels this excruciating pain. For Llewellyn, these two triptychs that were commissioned together (with a third one that is now lost), Duccio stops to think about the physical pain of the crucifixion and the grief and pain that Mary suffered.
Focusing on narrative paintings and highlighting human experiences, the curators also successfully combine eight of nine back sequences in the altarpiece for Siena Cathedral. This five-metre-tall altarpiece is replete with many small paintings and is famously known as Duccio’s Maestà. However, the painter likely had other Sienese artists collaborate to bring this extraordinary project to life.
This sequence, separated two hundred and fifty years ago, required loans from five different collections worldwide to be reunited and become the centrepiece of this exhibition. It focuses on Christ’s importance in the lives of ordinary people, and the paintings were placed on the altarpiece where they were most accessible to the people.
Duccio’s emphasis in this work is on bringing stories to people that might bring them solace, comfort and peace. His work centred on the emotions it would evoke from his diverse audience and kept their experiences in mind. This allowed painters and artists at the time to follow in his footsteps and prioritise the ordinary people whose lives and works were heavily impacted. The National Gallery hosts a reunion that celebrates narrative painting and documents the rise of this technique and artistic experimentation in a small Italian city in the fourteenth century.
Siena: The Rise of Painting 1300‒1350 at the National Gallery explores when paintings became Western Europe's most sought-after art form. It transports its audience to the life of artists in 1300s Siena, a small, beautiful city in the hills in Italy’s Tuscany region. The city, at the time, was a cultural and economic hotspot. It was used as a thoroughfare for a major pilgrimage route; it was one of the first banking centres in Western Europe and an important location for many trade networks, including the historic Silk Road that connected the West to the East. This economic prosperity allowed artistic development in the city and allowed experimentation. Not far from bustling Florence, considered the birthplace of the Renaissance, this exhibition looks closely at four artists- Duccio di Buoninsegna, the brothers - Pietro and Ambrogio Lorenzetti, and Simone Martini, all born in Siena. It explores the monumental commissions they worked on.
This exhibition is the result of a collaborative project between six curators across the US, the UK and Ireland and was first showcased at The Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York between October 2024 and January 2025. This collaboration allows for the reunion of two of Duccio’s triptychs between 1311 and 1318, one owned by the National Gallery and the other by the Museum of Fine Arts in Boston, to be showcased together after several hundred years. The triptychs are identical in dimensions and structure and contain a central wooden panel with hinges on each side that link to smaller panels. This structure allows the work to open out or be closed, allowing ease of transportation. The work on this wood is done with tempera, a painting form where pigments are mixed with a water-soluble binder, often egg yolk. This gives the work a matte finish once dry, allowing the colours to retain their vibrance even after centuries.
These two triptychs are also significant because they convey what Laura Llewellyn, one of the curators of this exhibition and Curator of Italian Paintings before 1500 at the National Gallery, stresses is the exhibition's focus. Llewellyn emphasises that Duccio’s work while telling stories of Christianity, brings human experience to the forefront. In Triptych with the Virgin and Child, Saint Dominic, Saint Aurea, Patriarchs and Prophets, Duccio paints a happy Virgin Mary holding her child on her shoulders as he plays with her veil. By showing the mother and child's eyes interlocked, Duccio communicates to the audience the love between them. In the Triptych with the Crucifixion, Saint Nicholas, Saint Clement and the Redeemer with angels, the focus of the central image is on pain - both felt physically by Jesus Christ and Mary as she is depicted falling into the arms of those around her. This triptych relays the story of how, since Christ was born into this world without inflicting any pain of childbirth when he dies, Mary feels this excruciating pain. For Llewellyn, these two triptychs that were commissioned together (with a third one that is now lost), Duccio stops to think about the physical pain of the crucifixion and the grief and pain that Mary suffered.
Focusing on narrative paintings and highlighting human experiences, the curators also successfully combine eight of nine back sequences in the altarpiece for Siena Cathedral. This five-metre-tall altarpiece is replete with many small paintings and is famously known as Duccio’s Maestà. However, the painter likely had other Sienese artists collaborate to bring this extraordinary project to life.
This sequence, separated two hundred and fifty years ago, required loans from five different collections worldwide to be reunited and become the centrepiece of this exhibition. It focuses on Christ’s importance in the lives of ordinary people, and the paintings were placed on the altarpiece where they were most accessible to the people.
Duccio’s emphasis in this work is on bringing stories to people that might bring them solace, comfort and peace. His work centred on the emotions it would evoke from his diverse audience and kept their experiences in mind. This allowed painters and artists at the time to follow in his footsteps and prioritise the ordinary people whose lives and works were heavily impacted. The National Gallery hosts a reunion that celebrates narrative painting and documents the rise of this technique and artistic experimentation in a small Italian city in the fourteenth century.
Siena: The Rise of Painting 1300‒1350 at the National Gallery explores when paintings became Western Europe's most sought-after art form. It transports its audience to the life of artists in 1300s Siena, a small, beautiful city in the hills in Italy’s Tuscany region. The city, at the time, was a cultural and economic hotspot. It was used as a thoroughfare for a major pilgrimage route; it was one of the first banking centres in Western Europe and an important location for many trade networks, including the historic Silk Road that connected the West to the East. This economic prosperity allowed artistic development in the city and allowed experimentation. Not far from bustling Florence, considered the birthplace of the Renaissance, this exhibition looks closely at four artists- Duccio di Buoninsegna, the brothers - Pietro and Ambrogio Lorenzetti, and Simone Martini, all born in Siena. It explores the monumental commissions they worked on.
This exhibition is the result of a collaborative project between six curators across the US, the UK and Ireland and was first showcased at The Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York between October 2024 and January 2025. This collaboration allows for the reunion of two of Duccio’s triptychs between 1311 and 1318, one owned by the National Gallery and the other by the Museum of Fine Arts in Boston, to be showcased together after several hundred years. The triptychs are identical in dimensions and structure and contain a central wooden panel with hinges on each side that link to smaller panels. This structure allows the work to open out or be closed, allowing ease of transportation. The work on this wood is done with tempera, a painting form where pigments are mixed with a water-soluble binder, often egg yolk. This gives the work a matte finish once dry, allowing the colours to retain their vibrance even after centuries.
These two triptychs are also significant because they convey what Laura Llewellyn, one of the curators of this exhibition and Curator of Italian Paintings before 1500 at the National Gallery, stresses is the exhibition's focus. Llewellyn emphasises that Duccio’s work while telling stories of Christianity, brings human experience to the forefront. In Triptych with the Virgin and Child, Saint Dominic, Saint Aurea, Patriarchs and Prophets, Duccio paints a happy Virgin Mary holding her child on her shoulders as he plays with her veil. By showing the mother and child's eyes interlocked, Duccio communicates to the audience the love between them. In the Triptych with the Crucifixion, Saint Nicholas, Saint Clement and the Redeemer with angels, the focus of the central image is on pain - both felt physically by Jesus Christ and Mary as she is depicted falling into the arms of those around her. This triptych relays the story of how, since Christ was born into this world without inflicting any pain of childbirth when he dies, Mary feels this excruciating pain. For Llewellyn, these two triptychs that were commissioned together (with a third one that is now lost), Duccio stops to think about the physical pain of the crucifixion and the grief and pain that Mary suffered.
Focusing on narrative paintings and highlighting human experiences, the curators also successfully combine eight of nine back sequences in the altarpiece for Siena Cathedral. This five-metre-tall altarpiece is replete with many small paintings and is famously known as Duccio’s Maestà. However, the painter likely had other Sienese artists collaborate to bring this extraordinary project to life.
This sequence, separated two hundred and fifty years ago, required loans from five different collections worldwide to be reunited and become the centrepiece of this exhibition. It focuses on Christ’s importance in the lives of ordinary people, and the paintings were placed on the altarpiece where they were most accessible to the people.
Duccio’s emphasis in this work is on bringing stories to people that might bring them solace, comfort and peace. His work centred on the emotions it would evoke from his diverse audience and kept their experiences in mind. This allowed painters and artists at the time to follow in his footsteps and prioritise the ordinary people whose lives and works were heavily impacted. The National Gallery hosts a reunion that celebrates narrative painting and documents the rise of this technique and artistic experimentation in a small Italian city in the fourteenth century.
Siena: The Rise of Painting 1300‒1350 at the National Gallery explores when paintings became Western Europe's most sought-after art form. It transports its audience to the life of artists in 1300s Siena, a small, beautiful city in the hills in Italy’s Tuscany region. The city, at the time, was a cultural and economic hotspot. It was used as a thoroughfare for a major pilgrimage route; it was one of the first banking centres in Western Europe and an important location for many trade networks, including the historic Silk Road that connected the West to the East. This economic prosperity allowed artistic development in the city and allowed experimentation. Not far from bustling Florence, considered the birthplace of the Renaissance, this exhibition looks closely at four artists- Duccio di Buoninsegna, the brothers - Pietro and Ambrogio Lorenzetti, and Simone Martini, all born in Siena. It explores the monumental commissions they worked on.
This exhibition is the result of a collaborative project between six curators across the US, the UK and Ireland and was first showcased at The Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York between October 2024 and January 2025. This collaboration allows for the reunion of two of Duccio’s triptychs between 1311 and 1318, one owned by the National Gallery and the other by the Museum of Fine Arts in Boston, to be showcased together after several hundred years. The triptychs are identical in dimensions and structure and contain a central wooden panel with hinges on each side that link to smaller panels. This structure allows the work to open out or be closed, allowing ease of transportation. The work on this wood is done with tempera, a painting form where pigments are mixed with a water-soluble binder, often egg yolk. This gives the work a matte finish once dry, allowing the colours to retain their vibrance even after centuries.
These two triptychs are also significant because they convey what Laura Llewellyn, one of the curators of this exhibition and Curator of Italian Paintings before 1500 at the National Gallery, stresses is the exhibition's focus. Llewellyn emphasises that Duccio’s work while telling stories of Christianity, brings human experience to the forefront. In Triptych with the Virgin and Child, Saint Dominic, Saint Aurea, Patriarchs and Prophets, Duccio paints a happy Virgin Mary holding her child on her shoulders as he plays with her veil. By showing the mother and child's eyes interlocked, Duccio communicates to the audience the love between them. In the Triptych with the Crucifixion, Saint Nicholas, Saint Clement and the Redeemer with angels, the focus of the central image is on pain - both felt physically by Jesus Christ and Mary as she is depicted falling into the arms of those around her. This triptych relays the story of how, since Christ was born into this world without inflicting any pain of childbirth when he dies, Mary feels this excruciating pain. For Llewellyn, these two triptychs that were commissioned together (with a third one that is now lost), Duccio stops to think about the physical pain of the crucifixion and the grief and pain that Mary suffered.
Focusing on narrative paintings and highlighting human experiences, the curators also successfully combine eight of nine back sequences in the altarpiece for Siena Cathedral. This five-metre-tall altarpiece is replete with many small paintings and is famously known as Duccio’s Maestà. However, the painter likely had other Sienese artists collaborate to bring this extraordinary project to life.
This sequence, separated two hundred and fifty years ago, required loans from five different collections worldwide to be reunited and become the centrepiece of this exhibition. It focuses on Christ’s importance in the lives of ordinary people, and the paintings were placed on the altarpiece where they were most accessible to the people.
Duccio’s emphasis in this work is on bringing stories to people that might bring them solace, comfort and peace. His work centred on the emotions it would evoke from his diverse audience and kept their experiences in mind. This allowed painters and artists at the time to follow in his footsteps and prioritise the ordinary people whose lives and works were heavily impacted. The National Gallery hosts a reunion that celebrates narrative painting and documents the rise of this technique and artistic experimentation in a small Italian city in the fourteenth century.
Siena: The Rise of Painting 1300‒1350 at the National Gallery explores when paintings became Western Europe's most sought-after art form. It transports its audience to the life of artists in 1300s Siena, a small, beautiful city in the hills in Italy’s Tuscany region. The city, at the time, was a cultural and economic hotspot. It was used as a thoroughfare for a major pilgrimage route; it was one of the first banking centres in Western Europe and an important location for many trade networks, including the historic Silk Road that connected the West to the East. This economic prosperity allowed artistic development in the city and allowed experimentation. Not far from bustling Florence, considered the birthplace of the Renaissance, this exhibition looks closely at four artists- Duccio di Buoninsegna, the brothers - Pietro and Ambrogio Lorenzetti, and Simone Martini, all born in Siena. It explores the monumental commissions they worked on.
This exhibition is the result of a collaborative project between six curators across the US, the UK and Ireland and was first showcased at The Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York between October 2024 and January 2025. This collaboration allows for the reunion of two of Duccio’s triptychs between 1311 and 1318, one owned by the National Gallery and the other by the Museum of Fine Arts in Boston, to be showcased together after several hundred years. The triptychs are identical in dimensions and structure and contain a central wooden panel with hinges on each side that link to smaller panels. This structure allows the work to open out or be closed, allowing ease of transportation. The work on this wood is done with tempera, a painting form where pigments are mixed with a water-soluble binder, often egg yolk. This gives the work a matte finish once dry, allowing the colours to retain their vibrance even after centuries.
These two triptychs are also significant because they convey what Laura Llewellyn, one of the curators of this exhibition and Curator of Italian Paintings before 1500 at the National Gallery, stresses is the exhibition's focus. Llewellyn emphasises that Duccio’s work while telling stories of Christianity, brings human experience to the forefront. In Triptych with the Virgin and Child, Saint Dominic, Saint Aurea, Patriarchs and Prophets, Duccio paints a happy Virgin Mary holding her child on her shoulders as he plays with her veil. By showing the mother and child's eyes interlocked, Duccio communicates to the audience the love between them. In the Triptych with the Crucifixion, Saint Nicholas, Saint Clement and the Redeemer with angels, the focus of the central image is on pain - both felt physically by Jesus Christ and Mary as she is depicted falling into the arms of those around her. This triptych relays the story of how, since Christ was born into this world without inflicting any pain of childbirth when he dies, Mary feels this excruciating pain. For Llewellyn, these two triptychs that were commissioned together (with a third one that is now lost), Duccio stops to think about the physical pain of the crucifixion and the grief and pain that Mary suffered.
Focusing on narrative paintings and highlighting human experiences, the curators also successfully combine eight of nine back sequences in the altarpiece for Siena Cathedral. This five-metre-tall altarpiece is replete with many small paintings and is famously known as Duccio’s Maestà. However, the painter likely had other Sienese artists collaborate to bring this extraordinary project to life.
This sequence, separated two hundred and fifty years ago, required loans from five different collections worldwide to be reunited and become the centrepiece of this exhibition. It focuses on Christ’s importance in the lives of ordinary people, and the paintings were placed on the altarpiece where they were most accessible to the people.
Duccio’s emphasis in this work is on bringing stories to people that might bring them solace, comfort and peace. His work centred on the emotions it would evoke from his diverse audience and kept their experiences in mind. This allowed painters and artists at the time to follow in his footsteps and prioritise the ordinary people whose lives and works were heavily impacted. The National Gallery hosts a reunion that celebrates narrative painting and documents the rise of this technique and artistic experimentation in a small Italian city in the fourteenth century.
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