Saint Luke the Evangelist

Simone Martini portrays Saint Luke the Evangelist bending over an open book, holding a pen while a small ox appears near his feet. The gold ground illuminates his thoughtful face and warm reddish mantle. Delicate drawing turns the ordinary act of writing into a vision of religious inspiration, and letters beside the halo identify the figure. The richly decorated rectangular frame is part of the original painted object rather than a modern addition.

Now in the J. Paul Getty Museum in Los Angeles, the panel belonged to the portable polyptych traditionally associated with Siena’s civic government. The Getty dates it tentatively to the early 1330s, later than the chronology commonly suggested for the ensemble. Exceptionally, the panel preserves an old reverse painted to imitate porphyry. Its twentieth-century history also includes the Nazi seizure of the Lederer family collection and the painting’s recovery after the war.