The altarpiece remained at the cathedral for the next 450 years. It was practically an element of Gothic architecture itself, elaborately topped with pinnacles and gables resembling the cathedral’s façade, the whole outlined with gilded framing, supported by buttresses (for it was freestanding), and likely situated on the high altar beneath a four-posted baldachin, or ceremonial canopy. The focal point of this towering shrine was a luminous, gilded expanse of painting depicting the Virgin and child enthroned. It is this scene that gives the altarpiece its name, the Maestà, meaning Virgin in majesty. The Nativity with the Prophets Isaiah and Ezekiel occupied a place on the left side of the predella, or horizontal series of paintings forming the base of the altarpiece. The reverse of the altarpiece comprised a complex array of 40 detailed vignettes from the life of Christ and his Passion.

Multiple vignettes pictured around central figure of the Virgin narrate different aspects of the birth—an angel announces the birth to shepherds accompanied by their flock and a dog at right, while women bathe the child on the left. Joseph, at left with pink cloak and halo, is separated from Mary and the child to underscore the immaculate birth—he is not the child’s father. Other symbols, such as the semicircle above Mary at the top of the panel (heaven) and the eight-sided star that lights the way to Christ’s side, are familiar ones in Christian iconography, which Duccio followed in every respect. The prophet Ezekiel from the Old Testament stands on the right side of the Nativity, turned toward the scene. His Latin scroll refers to the Virgin birth. Isaiah, on the left, faces toward what is the predella’s first scene, the Annunciation and prophecies, “Behold, a virgin shall conceive and bear and son, and his name shall be called Emmanuel.”

Duccio’s work and occasional appearance in civic records (that show infractions for non-payment of taxes and occasional unruly behavior) situate him in Siena for most of his life. For a period around the turn of the 14th century scholars place him in Paris or Rome, where he may have absorbed other artistic influences. By the time of the Maestà commission, Duccio was managing a large studio in Siena where the painters Pietro and Ambrogio Lorenzetti and Simone Martini were likely to have trained (works by Pietro Lorenzetti and Simone Martini are also in the NGA collection). Contracts show that the Maestà was undertaken in stages, without the entire program of the work being outlined in advance. The scale of the project indicates that Duccio likely enlisted a number of other artists to work on it, especially with respect to the rear panels, and that he was under some pressure to complete the whole in a timely fashion. Nonetheless, its unified nature suggests that Duccio strongly directed the other artists.

Political considerations also have shaped our understanding of this artist and his contributions to Western art over time. In the 13th century, Florence and Siena were bitter rivals, the former aligned with the Papacy, the latter with the authority of the Roman Emperor, a position Siena was forced to cede in 1268. Over time, Florence assumed a greater economic and cultural significance, its classically-inspired art more closely associated with the flowering of the Renaissance, while Sienese art became associated with an older style, based in archaic Greek or Byzantine models.