Saint Anne and the Infant Virgin

This, the central panel of an altarpiece, shows Anne holding her daughter, Mary, mother of Jesus. Ugolino continued the style of his teacher Duccio, the leading painter of the early Renaissance in Siena. Other contemporaries – such as Simone Martini – forged new paths. Ugolino’s conservatism was appreciated by many patrons, and he was invited to Florence to work, where he likely painted this. It originally had a lobed-arch top, still faintly visible.