Duccio: The Complete Story
When his greatest work was finished in 1311, the whole city of Siena reportedly carried it to the cathedral in a festive procession, with bells and candles. The painting was the Maesta, and the artist was Duccio di Buoninsegna, the founder of Sienese painting and one of the most refined artists of the Middle Ages.
Duccio took the rigid Byzantine icon and filled it with grace, soft colour and gold, creating images of gentle beauty that shaped Italian painting for generations.
The gentler gold
Where other medieval painters were stiff, Duccio was tender. He kept the gold grounds and holy calm of the Byzantine tradition but gave his figures flowing lines, delicate faces and a new softness.
He worked in tempera painting, building luminous layers over gold, sweet where the old icons had been severe.
The Maesta and its procession
His great work was the Maesta, an enormous double sided altarpiece for Siena Cathedral showing the enthroned Virgin surrounded by saints. When it was finished, the city carried it through the streets in celebration.
The back was covered with small narrative scenes of the life of Christ, including a row of panels along the base. See what is a predella.
The altarpiece taken apart
Centuries later the Maesta was dismantled, sawn into pieces and many panels sold, so fragments of one of the greatest medieval works now hang in museums in Siena, London, New York and beyond.
Scholars have spent decades reconstructing on paper what once stood whole on the altar, a jigsaw scattered by the art market.
A tiny Madonna and a record
Duccio worked at every scale. A very small Madonna and Child by him, once thought lost, was acquired by the Metropolitan Museum in New York in 2004 for a sum reported around forty five million dollars.
It was one of the highest prices ever paid for a medieval painting, proof that a small panel by the founder of Siena still commands awe seven centuries on.
Common questions about Duccio
What is he known for?
Founding the Sienese school and painting the great Maesta altarpiece.
What is the Maesta?
A huge double sided altarpiece for Siena Cathedral, carried there in procession in 1311.
Why is it in pieces?
It was dismantled and sold over the centuries, so its panels are now scattered.
When did he die?
Around 1319, in Siena.
Why his grace endures
Duccio proved that medieval art could be sweet as well as holy. He gave Siena a style of tender beauty that rivalled the firmer Florence of Giotto, and shaped Italian painting for generations of his followers.
He ran a busy Siena workshop that trained the next generation, including Simone Martini and the Lorenzetti brothers, so a whole school of tender, graceful painting flows out of his hand. Records show he was also repeatedly fined by the authorities, the painter of serene Madonnas being, in life, something of a troublemaker. His influence ran straight through his pupils into the golden age of Siena, and the small panel now in New York is the only work by him in the Americas, a single jewel from a vanished altar. His careful study of drapery, faces and gold influenced not just Siena but the wider course of Italian painting, and the slow modern work of piecing the Maesta back together, panel by scattered panel, has become one of the great detective stories of art history.