The work (an oil on panel, size 39 x 15 cm.), was originally part of a triptych, made between 1599 and 1503,(an oil on panel, size 39 x 15 cm.), probably with the role of a small altar for private devotion and includes a second tablet of similar size depicting Santa Maria Maddalena. At the center of the two saints there should perhaps be a lost image of the Virgin with the child or the Holy Family, as the invocation to the Virgin on the back of the painting: "Benedicat virgo Maria." would suggest.
A particular element of the depiction, is a cogged wheel on the ground, a symbolic reference to the saint and her triumph over martyrdom.
The small painting, now housed in the Galleria Nazionale delle Marche (National Gallery of the Marche region) in Urbino, was repurchased by Italy only in 1990 after finishing on the antiques market in 1955, following the dispersion of the great Florentine collection of Count Alessandro Contini Bonacossi.

INFO:
Address: Piazza Duca Federico 107
City: Urbino
Phone: 0722.322625
Website: www.artimarche.beniculturali.it/index.php/galleria-nazionale-delle-marche