Made for the private devotion of Cardinal Niccolò da Prato, a high-ranking Dominican who was Cardinal of Ostia and would therefore have had reason to venerate Saint Aurea of Ostia, otherwise rarely shown. This type of small-scale altarpiece with closing shutters was intended to be portable.
The dimensions are identical to those of a triptych of The Crucifixion with Saints Nicholas and Gregory on the shutters (Boston, Museum of Fine Arts) which was also painted in Duccio’s workshop.
The exterior of the shutters in both triptychs have the same geometric patterns.

The Virgin, in her role as Madonna of Mercy, holds back the edge of her robe to protect three kneeling Franciscan friars, who may have carried out their private devotions before the triptych of which this was once part.

Part of a diptych commissioned by Filippo di Sanguineto, Count of Altomonte. Filippo was the deputy in Siena of Charles, the Duke of Calabria and heir to the throne of Naples.
The choice of St Ladislaus was prompted by the ties that bound Filippo to the Hungarian branch of the House of Anjou.
By commissioning such a work from Simone Martini, who had worked extensively for Robert, King of Naples, Filippo neatly combined personal piety and honour for his noble master.

St Bernard and St John the Baptist flank the central panel of the Madonna Enthroned; on the left are St Margaret and St Lucy beneath the Stigmatisation of St Francis. On the right is the Crucifixion.
This is the only known signed work by Jacopo del Casentino, a painter and miniaturist active in Florence who in 1339 was a founder member of the Compagnia di San Luca, the painters' guild.

The painting, in its original frame, is the right panel of a diptych; the other panel is the Madonna and Child. The composition of the Man of Sorrow is based on a small mosaic icon executed around 1300 in the Santa Croce in Gerusalemme in Rome.
The panel is signed on the lower part of the frame: PETRUS LAVRETII DE SENI ME PIXI.

Daddi was influenced both by Giotto and his Sienese contemporaries. His prolific workshop specialised in the production of panel paintings, many of them devotional tabernacles.
The panel's closely packed images constitute a compendium of Christian doctrine presented in the form of detailed narratives. The interior includes The Redeemer (top), the Annunciation, the Nativity, the Crucifixion and the Four Evangelists.
On the reverse of the shutters are two images which, when the tabernacle is closed, unite to form the Adoration of the Magi, with two Bishop Saints above; the landscape becomes continuous across the framed moulding.

Another triptych from Bernardo Daddi. The Courtauld triptych contains more figures, and was presumably the more expensive edition.

Probably sold from stock for domestic use, the closed wings have preserved the brilliance of the colours, which once must have been typical.

Giusto painted this triptych for private devotion. It is one of only two works by the artist known to have been made in Lombardy. It is not known for whom it was commissioned.
The inclusion of gilded glass (verre eglomisé) in the spandrels of the panel is unusual.
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This was the central panel of a folding triptych, with the Presentation of the Virgin (Uffizi) on the left and the Coronation of the Virgin (Metropolitan Museum of Art) on the right.
All three panels share a geometric pattern on the reverse.
Saint Joseph places a ring on the Virgin's finger. According to apocryphal lives of the Virgin her suitors had to present rods at the temple, and the rod which flowered signified the chosen one; Saint Joseph's blossoms in the form of a dove.
At the left are the unsuccessful suitors, while in the background are the Virgin's parents ­ Saints Joachim and Anna. The palm tree may be a reference to the Song of Songs (7: 7), where the beloved is compared to the tree. At the top of the composition a swallow returns to its nest. On the reverse is a geometric design, painted and punched.

Jacobello worked in Venice in the second half of the 14th century. This is his only signed work.

The wriggling Christ child grasps his mother's mantle with one hand and a scroll bearing a text from the Sermon on the Mount ('Blessed are the Pure in Heart') in the other.
Despite the Byzantine aspect created by the mordant gilding, the tilt of the Virgin's head and her gaze directly at the worshipper gives this tiny painting a striking intimacy.