Seraphim, cherubim and archangels — the three ranks of the celestial hierarchy that painters ever gave a face.
Of the nine ranks, painting gave a body to three. Seraphim are red and appear as heads inside six wings; cherubim are blue and usually reduced to a winged head; archangels are full figures, dressed and armed. Thrones, dominions, virtues, powers and principalities were named in sermons and inventories far more often than they were painted, and in this collection they are almost absent — which is itself the finding, not a gap in the catalogue.
Domenico Ghirlandaio
