It is named after its commissioner Agostino Chigi, a Sienese banker, for the Chigi family chapel in the church of Sant'Agostino in Siena, where it still hangs.

The upper heavenly one shows Christ on the cross surrounded by a symmetrical arrangement of angels and cherubim.

The lower earthly register shows eight lamenting saints connected to the commissioner, the church and the chapel - on the right are John the Baptist and Jerome, for example.

The deep landscape backgrounds shows hills and a clear sky.

The work originally also had a predella, which is now divided between the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York and the Art Institute of Chicago.