The Annunciation,
oil on panel, 32.4 x 43.5 cm, unframed

This painting relates to the composition by Michelangelo, a cartoon or cartonetto, conserved in the Gabinetto dei Disegni e delle Stampe in the Uffizi, Florence (inv. no. 229 F). The composition was used around 1555 by Marcello Venusti, one of Michelangelo’s principal followers, for the execution of an altarpiece in San Giovanni in Laterano, Rome.

Standing beside a lectern, the Madonna, startled by the sudden appearance of the archangel Gabriel, interrupts her reading with a gesture of surprise. The scene is represented as a private and intimate event: the room that replaces the more traditional open arcade of the Annunciation, is furnished with a lectern, beyond which is a four-poster bed, and nearby, a small door set ajar. Divine light emanating from the dove of the Holy Spirit lights the scene.

The composition of the present panel can also be compared to a print by the French engraver Nicolas Béatrizet that reproduces Michelangelo’s invention with minor variants. Indeed, when compared to Michelangelo’s drawing, both the print and this painting exclude a statuette on the lectern. The painting is distinguished by its refined range of colours, especially visible in the Madonna’s robes, in the open Bible and the cushion, as well as in the iridescence of the angel’s mantle. The painting’s small scale might imply that it was executed for private devotion.