These 6 panels recount scenes from the childhood and Passion of Christ. They were part of a series of 12 images painted on the shutters of an altarpiece that was dismembered in the 19th century, and whose central subject is therefore unknown. The upper part of the polyptych seems to have depicted the Coronation of the Virgin.

Dated from the 1270s, these panels have been attributed to Dietisalvi di Speme or Guido of Siena.

These artists were from a generation that was beginning to break free from the tradition of the icon under the influence of French Gothic art, which was disseminated and popularised by the circulation of painted manuscripts and carved ivories or as a result of the recent installation of the Angevin court in Naples. Siena was engaged at the time in significant trade in art objects and was located at the confluence of a variety of cultural and economic circuits between north and south. In these paintings, the influence of the Byzantine style is found in the golden background and the stiffness and simplistic representation of the characters, yet they also herald a new art in which narrative, anecdote and a sense of the prosaic emerge from the illumination.

The marginal position in the polyptych of the various scenes from the life of Christ enables them to be treated creatively. Some of figures are shown to be leaning at an angle, while Christ's mantle is portrayed flying off in the scene of the Kiss of Judas. In the Crucifixion and the Descent from the Cross, the pain is conveyed in the tormented face and frozen pose whereas in the Entombment it is expressed theatrically in the form of a woman with raised arms.

Careful attention to detail is reflected in the small hanging lamps in the scene of the Presentation in the Temple, in the topiary cut of the tree to the right in the Descent from the Cross or the plant with its jagged silhouette in the Entombment.

The scenes stand out against an architectural or landscaped background, demonstrating a new willingness to portray space in three dimensions. The motifs are presented obliquely and not frontally, the walls are painted to reflect a slightly graded light. A palette of precious tones replaces the usually muted colours.