PAOLO DI GIOVANNI FEI
(b. ca. 1345, San Quirico d'Orcia, d. ca. 1411)

Virgin and Child Enthroned

1385-90
Tempera on wood, 44 x 29 cm
Lindenau-Museum, Altenburg

The enthroned Virgin is depicted with two saints, four angels, and a donor. This painting was perhaps an independent votive image, or the left wing of a diptych made for devotion. Paolo di Giovanni Fei was a popular artist whose style is characterized by a fanciful use of color and emphasis of incidental detail rather than rational spatial illusionism. He was influenced by the works of Pietro and Ambrogio Lorenzetti, Bartolo di Fredi and Simone Martini.