MASTER of the Castello Nativity
(active 1445-1475 in Florence)

Madonna and Sts Justus and Clement

c. 1450
Tempera and gold on panel
Museo dell'Opera del Duomo, Prato

The Master of the Castello Nativity (Maestro della Natività di Castello) was a pupil of Filippo Lippi. He must have worked closely with Filippo Lippi, as many of his paintings are direct copies of Lippi's compositions of the late 1450s. This altarpiece comes from the small parish church of Santi Giusto e Clemente in Faltugnano in the hills north of Prato. The three panels which formed the predella are now in the Philadelphia Museum of Art and in the National Gallery, London.