Ansano di Pietro di Mencio, known as Sano di Pietro, was the most consistently productive Sienese master of the mid-fifteenth century. His compositions clearly show the influence of Sienese contemporaries and predecessors, notably Sassetta and Domenico di Bartolo. In this panel, the Virgin’s delicately drawn face and almond-shaped eyes closely echo those in the artist’s Virgin and Child with Angels in the Pinacoteca Nazionale di Siena. The motif of their faces gently pressed together also appears in numerous works by Sano di Pietro and his workshop (for example, in a painting in the Lehman Collection at the Met). The particular manner of concealing the Christ Child’s right cheek behind the Virgin’s face was probably inspired by a celebrated Madonna painted by the Sienese master Ambrogio Lorenzetti in the Pinacoteca Nazionale, Siena. The present work also includes Saint Jerome, identified by his rosary and the stone with which he beats his breast, while above, the depiction of Christ in the Sepulcher subtly foreshadows the Child’s Passion. Datable to around 1460, this panel was painted at a time when the artist led a highly active and stylistically cohesive workshop. While his vast output has prompted occasional distinctions between the master’s hand and those of his assistants, the assured quality and refinement in this painting are characteristic of Sano’s own mature oeuvre
