Although the Virgin Mary, seated on a throne, occupies the center of this composition, the gazes of several of the figures are drawn toward the kneeling figure in clerical dress at lower left. This figure, whom Saint Peter presents to the Christ Child, is the donor, who commissioned the painting. The work was originally two-sided, with a head of Christ on the reverse, but its original function remains a mystery since it is much smaller than the trays presented as gifts to new mothers in fifteenth-century Florence.

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