The Virgin Mary

Date

c. 1333

Description

Madonna’s Annunciation

Creator of the image: Simone Martini and Lippo Memmi
Date of the image creation: c. 1333
Medium of the image: Tempura and gold on a wooden triptych
Person depicted: Mary, mother of Jesus

The Annunciation with Saint Margaret and Saint Ansanus is a triptych painted by the Gothic Italian artists Simone Martini and Lippo Memmi. It was originally painted as a side-altar in the Siena Cathedral and is now housed in the Uffizi Gallery in Florence. Mary and Gabriel are flanked by two saints in the triptych’s outer panels. The artwork is an iconographic Christian image that shows the announcement of the angel Gabriel to the Virgin Mary that she would conceive and mother the Son of God.

The image contains a number of realistic components, such as the vase of lilies between the two protagonists, their posture, and the book that Mary holds. The vase and flowers, themselves an allegory to the purity of the Virgin, are depicted as multidimensional, quite distinct from the more typical flatness of other Byzantine art.

Gabriel kneels before Mary, olive branch in hand and the words project from his mouth towards the Virgin. The celestial messenger says: ‘Hail, thou that art highly favoured, the Lord is with thee: blessed art thou among women’. A space opens above, with eight angels tearing a rift through the worlds allowing a dove to descend from Heaven. The bird is about to enter the Virgin's right ear and inseminate her. Mary is captured at the moment she is startled from her readings by this most unexpected turn of events. She does not appear wildly pleased by the news, with a sense of reluctance playing across her features.

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