Two Putti

Matteo di Giovanni · 1490–1510

Medium

Tempera or oil on panel

Original size

46.3 × 37.5 cm (18 1/4 × 14 3/4 in.)

Currently held

Art Institute of Chicago

Movement

Italian Renaissance

Soft-cheeked and serene, these two winged putti embody the tender, otherworldly grace that defined the finest devotional painting of late fifteenth-century Siena. Matteo di Giovanni was among the most accomplished painters working in Siena in the latter half of the Quattrocento, producing altarpieces and panels of exceptional refinement for churches and private patrons across Tuscany and beyond. His figures — whether Madonnas, saints, or these celestial infants — share a distinctive lightness of touch: fluid contours, luminous flesh tones, and a restrained palette rooted in the older Sienese tradition yet quietly informed by Florentine influence. The careful, tender rendering of form in this small panel reflects a master working at the height of his technical command. Small panels depicting putti were frequently fragments of larger altarpiece structures — detached over the centuries and preserved independently as the most immediately appealing elements of Renaissance polyptychs. Our hand-painted oil reproduction faithfully captures the delicate surface quality and warm luminosity of Matteo's original, bringing the same quiet, devotional presence into your home that this panel has carried for more than five centuries.