For centuries, the Italian painter Cimabue has been overshadowed by his more famous pupil Giotto, who is widely credited with ushering in the Renaissance. But a restoration project undertaken by the Musée du Louvre in Paris on Cimabue’s La Maestà (around 1280) is challenging these long-held assumptions, revealing how many critical innovations were already apparent in the work of the older painter.

La Maestà, more than four metres high, depicts an enthroned Madonna and Child surrounded by angels, with apostles, saints and other figures represented in the original frame. It was first mentioned by the artist and chronicler Giorgio Vasari in his Lives of the Artists, and arrived at the Louvre in 1813, having been looted from Italy by Napoleon’s troops.