Collections: European Art: Madonna with Saints and Scenes of the Life of Christ, portable altarpiece

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Madonna with Saints and Scenes of the Life of Christ, portable altarpiece

Maso was one of the most gifted pupils and associates of Giotto (1267–1337). This triptych, intended for private devotion, is the only complete work of this size that can be attributed with certainty to his hand. Even at this scale, the figures have a Giottesque magnitude and solidity. Maso surrounds the central Madonna, enlarged and enthroned to emphasize her majesty, with a choir of twenty saints, whose number is implied by the neatly overlapping, tooled halos. This approach to representing depth, before the invention of perspective, reveals a simultaneous sophistication and naïveté. In a series of separate scenes, stacked one above the other on the wings of the triptych, the pictorial program recounts episodes of the Life of Christ, from the Annunciation to the Crucifixion.


• Artist: Maso di Banco, Italian, Florentine School, 1341-1346
• Medium: Tempera and tooled gold on poplar panel in original engaged frame
• Place Made: Italy
• Dates: ca. 1336
• Dimensions: Center panel: 30 1/8 x 11 3/4 in. (76.5 x 29.8 cm) Wings: 17 3/4 x 5 1/8 in. (45.1 x 13 cm)
• Collections: European Art
• Museum Location: This item is on view in Beaux-Arts Court, East, 3rd Floor
• Accession Number: 34.838
• Credit Line: Gift of Mary Babbott Ladd, Lydia Babbott Stokes, and Frank L. Babbott, Jr. in memory of their father Frank L. Babbott
• Image: Overall, 34.838.jpg. Brooklyn Museum photograph
Maso di Banco (Italian, Florentine School, 1341-1346). Madonna with Saints and Scenes of the Life of Christ, portable altarpiece, ca. 1336. Tempera and tooled gold on poplar panel in original engaged frame, Center panel: 30 1/8 x 11 3/4 in. (76.5 x 29.8 cm) Wings: 17 3/4 x 5 1/8 in. (45.1 x 13 cm). Brooklyn Museum, Gift of Mary Babbott Ladd, Lydia Babbott Stokes, and Frank L. Babbott, Jr. in memory of their father Frank L. Babbott, 34.838 (Photo: Brooklyn Museum, 34.838.jpg)
• Catalogue Description: Center panel: Virgin and Child with Twenty Saints Center pinnacle: God the Father Light wing: Angel Annunciate; The Annunciation to the Shepherds; The Nativity Right wing: Virgin Annunciate; Crucifixion