Virgin and Child with Sts John the Baptist and Job

Many of the most positive and characteristic qualities of Franciabigio's art are exemplified by the Saint Job altarpiece produced for the high altar of the church of the confraternity of the same dedication to which he himself belonged by 1509 at the latest. It features the Virgin and Child enthroned with Sts Job and John the Baptist and is signed with his monogram and dated 1516. This is a work with concentrated power and monolithic scale and weight of its figures. The altarpiece has darkened considerably but the rich paint surface is still very much in evidence.