The Adoration of the Shepherds

This painting may have been part of the most influential and important group of altarpieces painted in Siena in the fourteenth century. The city’s cathedral was dedicated to the Virgin, and altarpieces depicting episodes from her life were commissioned from various artists for its chapels honoring Sienese patron saints. Documents confirm that a painting of the Nativity was part of a series that also included Pietro Lorenzetti’s Birth of the Virgin, Simone Martini’s Annunciation, and Ambrogio Lorenzetti’s Purification. The Adoration, the last to be completed, was the central panel of the altar of Saint Victor. Among the many things that distinguish this series is the introduction of narrative subjects to the central image of large altarpieces. This work is clearly a fragment of a larger painting (note the severed hand on the right), and its original wooden support was removed and replaced with a modern backing.