Description
The Madonna and Child with Six Angels, preserved in the Galleria Nazionale dell’Umbria in Perugia, is an outstanding work from Duccio's mature period. Mary holds Jesus as the Child gently pulls at her veil. Six angels lean over the upper edge of the picture, as though gazing through an opening into the heavenly realm.
Dated approximately between 1304 and 1310, the surviving panel once occupied the centre of a larger polyptych whose other sections are lost. It came from the Dominican church of San Domenico in Perugia. The gold ground, delicate faces and intimate gestures reveal the transformation of Sienese painting in the early fourteenth century. One key to the design lies in the boundary between the painted figures and their architectural setting. The angels seem to advance from behind the throne, leaning towards the centre and suggesting depth without a consistently constructed geometric perspective.






