A sculptor as well as a painter, Neroccio de" Landi was one of the most accomplished artists of late-fifteenth-century Siena. His work centered on devotional images of the Madonna and Child; this one dates about 1490. The format—with two accompanying saints set behind the Virgin—was conventional in Siena, but Neroccio"s lyrical, relief-like treatment of the figures and his emphasis on surface refinement are peculiar to him.The frame is not original to the picture but was designed by the great architectural engineer-sculptor-painter Francesco di Giorgio, with whom Neroccio shared a workshop between 1468 and 1475.