Madonna and Child with Six Saints
Tommaso del Mazza
Italian, active 1350–1415

Details
Title
Madonna and Child with Six Saints
Artist/Maker
Tommaso del Mazza (Italian, active 1350–1415)
Date
ca. 1390
Medium
Tempera on panel
Dimensions
31 3/4 x 21 3/8 inches
Credit
Gift of the Samuel H. Kress Foundation
Accession #
58.49
This religious panel painting shows a group of saints venerating a Madonna and Child seated on a body of clouds, surrounded by a frame of cherubic figures. The artist, an early Renaissance painter working in Florence named Tommaso del Mazza, included among the saints the rarely depicted St. Verdiana, represented at the bottom right of the painting as a nun holding a basket. The thirteenth-century saint is shown with two snakes, her distinguishing attribute, which recall her life as a recluse tormented by serpents.