Saints Matthias and Thomas

These two saints, depicted at half-length and carrying books, originally belonged to the upper register of a large, multi-paneled altarpiece, the other fragments of which have not been conclusively identified. Inscriptions below the figures identify them as Matthias and Thomas, two of Christ’s twelve apostles. The bright, warm palette is typical of Bartolomeo Bulgarini, a prominent painter in mid-fourteenth-century Siena. While the arched picture fields and some of the surrounding moldings are original, the rest of frame, such as the pointed pediment top and base, are modern additions, perhaps added in the late nineteenth-century to make the fragment look more like an independent gallery picture.