Apelles: the art of painting

This sculpture is part of a series of hexagonal reliefs set into the campanile, or bell tower, of Florence's cathedral celebrating the breadth of human knowledge, including the mechanical and liberal arts. Authorship of the panels remains debated; Andrea Pisano may have executed them in part, perhaps following designs by Giotto. This relief, showing a painter at work, indicates recognition of the important civic position of the artist, already in the fourteenth century.