Maddona with Child and Six Angels

Six angels lean in along the sides of the throne, heads tilted toward the Virgin and Child, turning rigid hierarchy into something almost intimate. Duccio, the founder of the Sienese school, threads gold through the Virgin's mantle and sets her against a burnished gold ground in the Byzantine manner, but his line stays graceful and his color sweet. The composition closely echoes the enthroned Madonnas of his Florentine contemporary Cimabue - the two were the leading painters of the generation just before Giotto - though Duccio's touch is the more lyrical and refined.