Description
This small panel depicts a half-length angel with dark wings, an ornamented halo and a slender staff held between the hands. It belonged to the upper crowning section of the Maestà made by Duccio and his workshop for Siena Cathedral. Known through a historical black-and-white photograph, it once belonged to the Stoclet Collection in Brussels. Its present whereabouts are unknown. The Federico Zeri Foundation catalogues it as a work of Duccio's workshop.
This work requires a different kind of looking from that possible before an original panel. Viewers cannot examine colour, the translucency of tempera or traces of restoration directly. They must depend on the distribution of light and dark fixed by an earlier photographer. The image remains valuable evidence, but claims about pigments, gilding and present condition demand independent documentation.
