Maestà by Duccio di Buoninsegna, 1308-1311, tempera on wood, 214 x 412 cm, Museo dell'Opera del Duomo, Siena, Public Domain via Wikimedia Commons.
Maestà (noun)
Italian for “majesty,” a maestà is an image type that depicts the Virgin and Child enthroned with angels surrounding them.
Perhaps the best known maestà is by Duccio, who painted the subject for the Siena Cathedral. Duccio’s rendition of the iconic image combined flat, linear Byzantine sources with a new interest in setting figures that look three-dimensional into a convincing space.
