Jacopo di Cione and workshop, Beata Paola

These six pilaster panels were discovered wrapped in newspaper in 1995 in the church of Saint Mary Magdalene, Littleton, having been removed during the restoration of the church in the 1970s.

They have recently been cleaned by students at the Courtauld Institute. They are first recorded in the collection of the 19th-century collector, William Young Ottley.

The presence of three saints of the Camaldolese order (reformed Benedictines) suggests they may have come from the monastery of Santa Maria degli Angeli in Florence. They may have been part of the same altarpiece as the pinnacle panel with Noli me tangere on display in the same room. This in turn has been associated with several fragments in American collections which may have formed part of an altarpiece thought to have come from a chapel dedicated to All Saints in Santa Maria degli Angeli, founded by a notary, Ser Francesco di ser Berto degli Albizzi.

The di Cione brothers, Andrea, Jacopo and Nardo dominated Florentine painting during the second half of the 14th century. Also by Jacopo and his workshop in the National Gallery is the gigantic altarpiece from San Pier Maggiore, Florence, painted 1370-71 showing the Coronation of the Virgin, and the Crucifixion.