| Florentine painting from c 1390-1400 in tempera and gold-leaf on panel known as 'The Celestial Madonna of Humility'. The Virgin is surrounded by two standing and two kneeling angels, the latter music-playing, and four saints: above on the left Bernard, below St John the Baptist, on the right Saints Julian and Nicolas of Bari. Above, God with the Dove of the Holy Ghost, flanked by flying angels and in the summit the Crucifixion with the Virgin and St John. The Master of Straus was an unidentified artist belonging to the circle of Agnolo Gaddi and Lorenzo Monaco who represented in Florence the neo-Gothic tendencies of Siena as against the new naturalism of the international style. The Madonna, seated against a gold field is suspended above the ground surrounded by saints and angels in a compositional type that was to develop into the later group known as 'Sacra Conversazione' of the early Renaissance in which the Madonna is enthroned on high. One of at least five examples of similar Madonna of Humility by the Straus Madonna. Bernard has 'tuft'.
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