St John Altarpiece (Memling) similar Memling work is the "" held at the Louvre, which Georges Hulin de Loo determined to have been completed earlier than the "St John Altarpiece" and the New York panel. The "Cellier Diptych" has the Virgin and Child in an enclosed garden with the same two Saints Catherine and Barbara on the left-hand panel. The composition is remarkably similar to the New York panel and the altarpiece, with the Virgin on her throne and St Catherine and St Barbara positioned to form a triangle. The "Cellier Diptych" includes four additional female saints (with attributes) sitting around the Virgin: St
Maestà The most famous example of the "Maestà" is the "Maestà with Twenty Angels and Nineteen Saints", an altarpiece comprising many individual paintings commissioned by the city of Siena in 1308 from the artist Duccio di Buoninsegna. The painting was installed in the city's cathedral on June 9, 1311. Although it took a generation for its effect truly to be felt, Duccio's "Maestà" set Italian painting on a course leading away from the hieratic representations of Byzantine art towards more direct presentations of reality. Creating this altarpiece assembled from many wood panels bonded together before painting was an arduous undertaking. The