Panels from the Altarpiece of The Assumption of the Virgin with Saints: Saint Giustina of Padua

Italian · 1450–75

Medium

Tempera and oil on panel

Original size

Panel: 126.2 × 31.9 cm (49 5/8 × 12 9/16 in.)

Currently held

Art Institute of Chicago

Movement

Italian Renaissance

This panel from a 15th-century Italian altarpiece presents Saint Giustina of Padua with the composed solemnity that defines the finest devotional painting of the period — her gaze serene, her gold ground luminous, her identity marked by the sword of her martyrdom. Created between 1450 and 1475 by an unknown Italian master, the work reflects a pivotal moment in painting history, when artists were beginning to blend traditional egg tempera with oil glazes drawn from Flemish innovations. This hybrid technique allowed for richer transitions between shadow and light while preserving the crisp linearity that characterised Italian panel painting. The result is a surface of remarkable delicacy — colour that seems to glow from within rather than merely sit on the panel. Saint Giustina, a Christian martyr venerated in Padua since the early centuries of the church, held particular importance across the Veneto region, where her cult shaped local devotion and artistic patronage for generations, making her a recurring presence in altarpiece commissions throughout northern Italy. Now held in the Art Institute of Chicago, the original panel rewards close attention in ways that reproductions rarely achieve. This hand-painted oil reproduction is made to do exactly that — faithfully rendering the warm gold palette, the precise handling of drapery folds, and the quiet devotional presence that made these panels objects of genuine reverence.