Description
This triptych by Pietro Lorenzetti brings together three devotional images beneath pointed Gothic gables. At the centre, the Virgin holds the Christ Child and offers him cherries, while Christ gives a blessing from the upper pinnacle. Mary Magdalene stands at the left holding an ointment jar. At the right, Catherine of Alexandria carries the wheel associated with her martyrdom and a palm. Two angels occupy the side pinnacles. The arrangement links the intimacy of the mother and child to the exemplary presence of the saints.
Probably painted around 1340, the ensemble retains a fragmentary inscription bearing the painter’s signature and date on part of the central panel’s original frame. It was executed in tempera on wooden panels, although the paint layers were subsequently transferred to canvas. The triptych is now in the National Gallery of Art in Washington, to which Frieda Schiff Warburg donated it in memory of Felix Warburg in 1941.
